GBM Resources has brought in a ‘big gun’ of geophysics as part of a strategy to rapidly expand its 1.84Moz gold resource base in the Drummond Basin through exploration.

The company has engaged renowned exploration geophysicist David McInnes from Montana GIS to undertake a complete review of historical geophysical programs over its Twin Hills and Yandan projects.

Announcing the move, GBM said Mr McInnes had more than 30 years of exploration experience working on geophysical data from every continent for companies such as Pasminco, WMC, CRA, RIO, and MIM/Xstrata.

His work has assisted with the discovery and expansion of world-class deposits such as: BHP’s Carrapateena and Prominent Hill sites, Newmont’s Havieron, and Adriatic’s Rupice and Veovaca projects.

GBM is in the process of finalising an exploration program across the Twin Hills (309 and Lone Sister deposits) and Yandan projects.

GBM said Mr McInnes had been tasked with helping delineate both near-deposit and greenfield drill targets in those areas through building a comprehensive 3D resistivity and chargeability model from all relevant geophysical data previously collected.

The Twin Hills and Yandan tenure covers 1,587sq km collectively, with limited modern exploration undertaken for blind epithermal gold deposits.

GBM said previous tenement owners were more focused on ‘high-grading’ the 309 and Yandan deposits to toll treat at neighbouring gold processing plants and had overlooked the broader exploration upside of the Drummond Basin.

‘With the assistance of David McInnes, GBM plans to undertake a regional exploration program to identify new drill targets with the aim to making gold discoveries,’ the company stated in an update to the ASX.

‘The work plan is designed to strengthen target generation and will involve; extending the current geophysics surveys such as IP across targeted areas, and soil sampling programs over geological and geophysical targets. The highest ranked targets will be drill tested.’