Aeris Resources Ltd (ASX:AIS) has been granted a new exploration tenement adjacent to its current Tritton acreage by the NSW Department of Planning and Environment
The tenement, EL8810, is near the northwest corner of the Tritton package and covers an area of 296 square kilometres, bringing Tritton’s total size to 2,160 square kilometres.
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More than 750,000 tonnes of copper have been discovered at Tritton, within a 50-kilometre long corridor adjacent to a stratigraphic unit referred to as the Budgery Sandstone.
This includes Aeris’ current mineral resource pf 20.7 million tonnes at 1.5% copper for 310,000 tonnes of copper metal.
Geological mapping completed in 2017 extended the known extent of the Budgery Sandstone a further 65 kilometres through the northern half of the Tritton tenement package.
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The Budgery Sandstone has been interpreted to continue a further 40 kilometres north beyond the Tritton tenements into the area now covered by EL8810.
Exploration activities within the tenement will begin this year, initially focusing on historical data compilation and geological mapping.
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Aeris is also preparing for an upcoming drilling program at its Torrens joint venture project in South Australia.
The company will use an innovative helicopter-supported drilling method, designed to minimise disturbance on the environmentally sensitive Lake Torrens salt lake landform.
Joint venture partners Aeris (70%) and Argonaut Resources NL (ASX:ARE) have awarded two key contracts for the drilling and helicopter services in preparation for the program.
Both partners are encouraged by BHP Billiton Limited’s (ASX:BHP) recent discovery of a discrete gravity anomaly around 45 kilometres southwest of Torrens.