The junior exploration sector has delivered a masterclass in greenfield persistence this week, proving that rewriting regional geological maps is still the quickest way to capture the market's imagination. Exploration crews have broken into completely untouched structural corridors, uncovering major new mineralised footprints from the historic, high-grade horizons of the Northern Territory and a major emergent polymetallic system in New South Wales, through to the heavily concealed basement rocks of the Western Australian goldfields. So let’s dive in.
CHALICE MINING LIMITED (ASX: CHN)
Project: Warrego North project, Kestrel prospect, Northern Territory
Hit: 15m at 8.6g/t gold and 0.54% copper from 78m downhole
Unlocking a completely fresh exploration frontier is a rare feat in mature mining districts; however, Chalice Mining has thrown the doors wide open at its Kestrel prospect, 65 kilometres west-northwest of the historic mining centre of Tennant Creek in Australia’s Northern Territory.
While the company first defined targets on the project in 2017, immediate exploration was delayed until land access and heritage clearances were negotiated on Aboriginal freehold land and tenure was granted in May.
In September, the company kicked off a first-pass, 16-hole, 3108-metre reconnaissance reverse circulation (RC) campaign at its Kestrel target and successfully intercepted broad zones of shallow copper mineralisation in all six holes drilled at the prospect.
The headline act belongs to a discovery hole that was drilled at a 60-degree dip and pierced a thick zone - dipping steeply to the north-northeast - to return 15m grading 8.6g/t gold and 0.54 per cent copper from 78m downhole depth.
The intercept features a blistering, ultra-high-grade gold core of 2m at 56.7g/t gold and 0.88 per cent copper from 81m, within a broader copper-gold zone of 27m assaying 0.42 per cent copper and 4.8g/t gold from 78m, strongly associated with elevated bismuth, tellurium, and selenium.
Wide-spaced follow-up holes have already tracked this copper-gold zone along 500m of strike - tracing the structural trend - and down to 140m depth, with the system remaining completely open in all directions.
Intriguingly, the mineralisation is hosted within siltstones and sandstones which have been intensely altered by chlorite and iron oxides such as hematite and magnetite, rather than the area's more typical ironstones.
That unique geological signature points to a weaker-intensity magnetic deposit style which historical explorers may have overlooked.
The Kestrel prospect lies just 20km west-northwest of the massively productive 1.33-million-ounce Warrego gold mine. Tantalisingly, the latest Kestrel results point to a possible along-strike extension of the Tennant Creek mineral field towards Kestrel.
Accordingly, Chalice has moved to quickly secure ground covering an interpreted 140km extension of the Tennant Creek inlier to test for a possible common run of strike between Kestrel and Warrego.
To define the true geometry and scale of this newly exposed trend, Chalice is gearing up to launch a detailed ground gravity geophysical survey over the next few weeks. The gravity campaign will map underlying dense hematite alterations. The aim is to create a precise roadmap for an extensive follow-up program of step-out and infill drilling across the broader Kestrel corridor.
BPM Minerals is drilling its Forelands project, 150km east of Kalgoorlie, to test its Bonnie & Clyde prospect, an untested 6km-long anomaly exhibiting the footprint of a major gold deposit. Credit: File
BPM MINERALS LIMITED (ASX: BPM)
Project: Forelands gold project, Bonnie & Clyde prospect, WA
Hit: 4m @ 20.57g/t gold from 39m downhole
Validating an expansive geochemical footprint with immediate drill-hole success is the ultimate dream for a greenfields explorer. BPM Minerals has achieved just that with its very first pass at a massive target, part of the company’s Forelands gold project in WA’s Eastern Goldfields.
Testing its extensive, six-kilometre-long, 100 parts per billion gold Bonnie & Clyde soil anomaly for the first time, the company pushed through thick cover - comprising paleochannel sands ranging between 15 and 30 metres deep - to score a magnificent, dual-intercept and high-grade gold breakthrough on its maiden reverse circulation (RC) drill traverse.
Two debut holes targeted a major structural flexure along the Yellow Dam shear zone, where one hole powered through the cover before boring into a highly prospective metamorphic basement.
The hole delivered two distinct, standout hits: a shallow 4m at 20.57g/t gold from 39m within brown saprolitic clays, followed by a deeper run of 8m at 9.23g/t gold from 71m within an oxidised, quartz-veined shear zone. The spectacular intervals were spiced up by individual bonanza single-metre grades of 73.33g/t gold and 64.71g/t gold, respectively. A second hole recorded no significant result.
According to management, the mineralisation sits within the same high-grade metamorphic basement rocks that host AngloGold Ashanti's nearby multi-million-ounce Tropicana deposit. Notably, AngloGold Ashanti explored the project area in a joint venture with Independence Group NL between 2004 and 2014, while exploring for gold and nickel.
A total of 38 RC drill holes for 5272m have been completed at the Bonnie & Clyde Prospect to date, with a stream of assay results expected throughout Q4 2026 and Q1 2027.
BPM says its drilling of the company’s four priority gold-in-soil anomalies will continue through to year’s end, with a possible 27 more holes for an estimated 4700m of the 65-hole Bonnie & Clyde program still to be drilled. First diamond holes and an EIS co-funded induced potential (IP) geophysical survey are slated for this quarter.
With the shallow hits remaining wide open along strike and down-dip, and samples from an additional 36 completed holes from the broader prospect already sitting at the laboratory awaiting assay, BPM has $5.3 million in the bank to aggressively follow up on its fresh discovery.
AUSTRALIAN GOLD AND COPPER LIMITED (ASX: AGC)
Project: South Cobar project, Evergreen prospect, New South Wales
Hit: 16m at 5.1g/t gold from 61m downhole
Proving up shallow continuity across an expanding polymetallic mineralised footprint is a surefire way to drive value, and this week, Australian Gold and Copper proved the point after generating exceptional shallow gold numbers from its flagship project in New South Wales.
Executing a targeted 21-hole reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign across its Western Discovery Zone, the company set out to test the up-dip and strike extensions of previous deep mineralised intercepts along the prominent Hillston Structure.
The program delivered an immediate standout result from a scissor hole designed to test a broad, shallow oxide gold zone, returning a headline intercept of 16m grading 5.1g/t gold from 61m. That broad hit is underpinned by a stellar, higher-grade sub-interval of 4m at 17.5g/t gold from 72m downhole.
According to the company, these fresh shallow results add significant geological weight to the western Evergreen area, successfully connecting with earlier drill triumphs that tagged 15m at 4.8g/t gold and a deeper polymetallic intercept of 13m at 3.3g/t gold, featuring massive silver, copper, lead, and zinc credits.
The latest shallow reverse circulation results build directly on a string of high-grade polymetallic victories at Evergreen. Previous diamond drilling into the zone tagged a hefty 17m at 5.3g/t gold, 163g/t silver, 0.8 per cent copper and a massive 17.3 per cent combined lead and zinc from 128m. The interval also included an ultra-rich eight-metre core grading 10.4g/t gold and 29 per cent combined base metals.
Another nearby diamond hole rubbed shoulders with a broad 13.6-metre intercept going 4.6g/t gold and 23g/t silver from 51.4m.
By pairing these deeper massive sulphide results with the latest shallow oxide gold hits, AGC is rapidly sketching out a broad, highly coherent, and gold-rich polymetallic mineralised framework across western Evergreen.
The company is currently well-funded with $5.9 million in cash to aggressively chase further scale across its commanding 2600-square-kilometre landholding in New South Wales' South Cobar Basin.
Having already established an initial 38.5-million-ounce silver-equivalent resource at its Achilles discovery just last year, a major second resource opportunity is now quickly taking shape along the 1.9km-long Browns-Evergreen corridor.
Because the entire gold-rich system remains open along strike and down-dip, AGC is moving to secure regulatory approvals to fast-track its next phase of resource definition drilling.
And with assay results for a remaining 12 RC holes still pending in the immediate pipeline, it seems the market won't have to wait long to
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
