Emmerson Resources Limited (ASX:ERM) recently established a very thick ~36-metre zone of gold 57 metres below the surface at its Mauretania Project in the Northern Territory.
Furthermore, a new zone of shallow copper mineralisation points to the possibility of gold at depth as the typical metal zonation in these styles of deposits consist of primary gold beneath the copper.
Following is an extract from Hartleys’ research report on Emmerson:
ERM has re-assayed diamond hole MTDD006 drilled at the Mauretania project (100% ERM), Tennant Creek, NT.
The original results did not match some the visual observations due largely to the presence of native copper.
The re-assay from the upper oxide zone reported:
- 15m @ 2.28g/t Au from 57m (incl. 3m @ 5.24g/t Au from 68m, and 2m at 4.23g/t Au from 64m).
- 1m @ 5.75g/t Au and 1.39% Cu from 76m.
- 21m @ 2.4g/t Au from 81m (incl. 5m @ 4.11 g/t Au, and 1m @ 9.25g/t Au).
True thickness of the upper oxide gold zone is estimated to be ~36m, and is shallow (~57m below surface) potentially extractable via open pit mining methods.
Variable gold grades have been previously reported at the prospect highlighting the nuggetty nature of the mineralisation and at time poor to no drill sample recoveries within the upper oxide zone.
The mineralisation at Mauretania is largely hosted within altered (haematite-talc-chlorite) ironstones
ERM has a sensible self-funding exploration model, whereby its portfolio of small mining opportunities can be commercialised under a profit share/gold royalty stream.
We maintain our Speculative Buy recommendation, cash at DecQ end A$1.9M.