The brains behind Predictive Discovery's multi-million ounce gold discovery in Guinea, geologist Paul Roberts and geoscientist Dr Barry Murphy, together with the explorer's former corporate development officer Christopher Swallow, are hoping to leverage their reputations to secure at least $8 million at 20c, to explore the Pine Creek project in the Northern Territory.
Oversubscriptions of up to $4 million will be accepted.
Roberts and Murphy developed a targeting methodology that defined Bankan, have used their skills to assess Australia after a decade in West Africa, although DeSoto is keen to look globally for gold and battery metals, primarily in Africa and South America.
The project generation work will also seek high-grade manganese opportunities in the tropics, describing is as "the overlooked battery material".
The foundation holding covers 1887sq.km within the Pine Creek Orogen, a province that has delivered resources of 17 million ounces of gold since the 1870s, and where pegmatites have been identified since the 1990s.
There are two sub-projects, its foundation Fenton leases and applications, and the Fenix tenements it will secure from private explorer Bacchus Resources, which are close to the historical Mt Wells tin mine.
Roberts and Murphy say that finding gold is in their DNA, and they have secured areas near known orogenic mineralisation, and conceptual lithium pegmatite targets.
The Fenton leases sit along the Fenton structural trend, which is sub-parallel to the prolific Pine Creek trend, but the trend has only been sparsely drilled since the 1990s by the likes of North and Homestake Gold, which suggested the potential for mineralisation such as the nearby 2Moz Cosmo Howley deposit.
The Fenix leases cover the Tipperary pegmatite district where tin-tantalum pegmatites were first discovered in 1882, with the pegmatites said to be similar to the Bynoe pegmatite field that is being developed by the Top End's first lithium miner, Core Lithium.
Core recently secured ground at MShoobridge abutting DeStoto's tenements from Newmont, the only company to assay for lithium during its gold exploration work.
DeSoto's IPO, which is being managed by PAC Securities, is expected to close next month.
