Aeris Resources Ltd (ASX:AIS)’s partner on the Canbelego Project, Helix Resources Limited, has struck a 29-metre copper zone during drilling at the western New South Wales site.
AIS, which has a 30% stake in the project, is encouraged by the visible copper sulphide mineralisation discovered during diamond drilling at Main Zone target position, about 50 metres down dip from the previous result of 18 metres at 3.4% copper intersected in May last year.
Hopes are high that this strike and the May find are part of a networked, larger area of mineral wealth, near Aeris' Tritton copper operations.
Prospect-scale geology
The copper zone occurs from 405 to 434 metres and consists of incipient veins and disseminated chalcopyrite (a copper sulphide mineral), including approximately 1.3 metres of massive to semi-massive chalcopyrite from 425.2 metres.
Incipient copper minerals, including malachite, bornite and chalcopyrite, were observed higher in the drill hole – indicating possible shallower, parallel lode positions to the west. These potentially correlate with similar intervals in last year’s Helix drilling.
“This is an encouraging start to the resumption of drilling at Canbelego,” Helix managing director Mike Rosenstreich said of these glimpses of the resource.
“We have done a lot of work to understand the prospect-scale geology and controls on the copper mineralisation – including how to target some of the higher grade, massive copper-sulphide shoots such as we hit in May last year.”
“It’s still very early days but we are also very interested to test the concept of repeat lodes which is typical for the ’Cobar Style’ of copper deposits, which are often blind at surface or have small footprints but can extend for up to several thousand metres vertically.”
“The mineralisation we observed higher in the hole may correlate with anomalous copper mineralised zones hit at shallow levels in drill hole 5 last year. This fits with an observed trend in some other historical drill holes in the project area and has helped develop our emerging parallel lode target concept.”
What’s next?
A reverse circulation (RC) drill program of 12 to 15 holes has commenced to test for parallel lode positions to the southwest.
VTEM surveying and soil geochemistry also indicate the potential for new lodes to the northeast, but with denser vegetation cover, further target definition work is needed to clear access for drilling.
Cobar-style copper deposits commonly present as a series of structurally controlled, parallel lodes. Helix is developing its exploration strategy around a Cobar deposit model.
AIS keenly awaits assay findings, with results expected to start to flow in from late March until early June.