Magmatic Resources Ltd (ASX:MAG) has upgraded the Lady Ilse prospect within the Wellington North Project in Central West NSW with ongoing exploration enhancing its drill readiness.
The latest results are from three of four remaining lines from a MIMDAS geophysical survey - an advanced electrical geophysical technique that collects multiple datasets such as chargeability, resistivity and conductivity.
MIMDAS offers greater depth penetration than conventional geophysics and allows for the efficient definition of porphyry features and effective drill targeting.
Target enhanced
The interpretation of the MIMDAS data indicates that the Lady Ilse target has grown significantly relative to the previous interpretation based on the first line and remains open to the south.
These results, in combination with the wide zone of gold and porphyry pathfinder anomalism associated with upper level pyrite-rich porphyry alteration, suggest the potential for a Cadia East-style porphyry system at Lady Ilse.
Project location map
Alkane Boda discovery
The Lady Ilse prospect displays the same characteristics as Alkane Resources Limited's (ASX:ALK) Boda porphyry discovery hole - 502 metres at 0.48 g/t gold and 0.2% copper from 211 metres - made in September 2019.
Similarities include a wide zone of gold and porphyry pathfinder geochemical anomalism associated with upper-level pyrite-rich porphyry alteration and a setting at the western margin of an intrusive complex.
The Boda prospect, which is within Alkane's Northern Molong Porphyry Project, demonstrates the potential of the Northern Molong Belt to host gold-copper porphyry discoveries.
Large-scale porphyry opportunity
Magmatic considers the substantially wider zone of upper-level pyrite-rich porphyry alteration defined at Lady Ilse may represent a larger-scale porphyry opportunity than Boda.
Along with Alkane, Magmatic’s Wellington North geographic position is near Alice Queen Ltd’s (ASX:AQX) Mendooran and Yarindury Copper-Gold Projects in the Molong Volcanic Belt.
Alice Queen also had its project's prospectivity enhanced after Alkane’s Boda discovery was made, just 700 metres from Yarindury.
At the time Alice Queen technical advisor John Holliday said: “Alkane has just made the best porphyry exploration discovery in the Lachlan Fold Belt, away from the three main mine centres [of Cadia, Cowal and Northparkes], in the last 20 or so years.”
Newcrest Mining Limited’s (ASX:NCM) Cadia Valley porphyry gold-copper deposit (48.7 million ounces gold and 6.5 million tonnes copper) about 25 kilometres southwest of Orange, is also within the Molong Volcanic Belt, further south.
Companies active within the Lachlan Fold Belt, and particularly the Northern Molong Belt, are anxiously awaiting Alkane's next results from Boda which are expected later this quarter.