Terrain Minerals has added a Queensland operation to its raft of Western Australian projects after lodging tenement applications for about 2500 square kilometres of highly-prospective ground near the Cracow gold mine.
The company says its extensive new package, known as the Biloela project, includes at least two known historic copper mines, in addition to copper and gold targets first identified by mining giants Rio Tinto, Gold Fields and Newcrest Mining.
Seven potential copper and gold sites have been identified by Terrain’s geologists across the 11 tenements that form the project, using existing geological and geophysical data sets built by external consultants. The data revealed several zones of potential copper-gold mineralisation.
The Prospect Park target hosts six historical pits in a strike length of about 50m, where Newcrest reported copper and gold results in the mid-2000s. Eight rock-chip samples at the site returned results of up to 2.33 grams per tonne gold and an impressive 9.23 per cent copper. No additional exploration has taken place at the site since 2004.
Terrain’s Mari target includes the appropriately-named Copper prospect. where secondary copper mineralisation has previously been reported with limited exploration. The Drunburie site was previously explored in 1971 by CRA Exploration, which later became Rio Tinto in the late 1990s.
A sample from fieldwork at the time produced a result of 5.85 per cent copper. However, no systematic exploration was recorded and the site has been lodged in the Geological Survey of Queensland as an abandoned mine.
The Lookerbie target includes the Mount Lookerbie and Perkins copper occurrences that form part of a sulphide system that is considered pyrite-rich. Oaky Creek hosts the both the historic Oaky Creek and Glandone Copper Show mineral occurrences. Glandone is marked by a 50m-long by 30m deep abandoned copper-gold-silver mine. Rock-chip samples at Oaky Creek have returned results of up to 2.15 per cent copper.
Terrain says Wild Scotsman shows potential for gold and copper mineralisation after Gold Fields previously reported that Carpentaria Exploration found copper anomalies at the site. Despite the presence of quartz alteration and malachite, no drilling was undertaken.
The Auburn target also shows potential with analysis of samples in 2011 returning results of up to 0.45 per cent copper and 3.2 parts per million gold.
While it will take about six months for the applications to be granted, in addition to securing heritage clearance, the company has been buoyed by its decision to acquire the Biloela project in Queensland.
Terrain has been making some big moves recently, including wrapping up the first phase of drilling at its Smokebush project in WA’s Mid West region earlier this week, with 10 of the 11 holes drilled intersecting multiple zones of pegmatites. The company told Bulls N’ Bears that assays are already at the laboratory and it is looking forward to receiving the results in the upcoming weeks.
A second phase of drilling is expected to begin in just days and it will target multiple pegmatites at the company’s Hurley and Monza prospects. The next campaign will also follow up on induced-polarisation anomalies to test interpreted repetitions of the nearby Minjar-style gold mineralisation.
The Minjar Gold District is about 80km south of Yalgoo and consists of a series of small gold mines along a north-south strike length of some 50km.
Assays from Terrain’s first phase of drilling are expected within six weeks, while a detailed soil-sampling program to examine the southern extension of a copper-in-soil anomaly at its Larin’s Lane prospect will kick off next month.
The market will be watching out for those results, while Terrain hopes its new acquisition that sits in Queensland’s Banana Shire will also soon bear plenty of fruit.
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By Michael Philipps
