AuKing Mining Ltd (ASX:AKN) has pinpointed multiple cobalt hits in historical drill core samples from the Koongie Park Copper-Zinc Project’s Sandiego deposit in WA.
The new results are consistent with cobalt mineralisation previously reported at Sandiego and confirm the potential for a cobalt resource that complements the existing copper/zinc/silver mineralisation at the deposit.
Notably, the existing Koongie Park resource — which stands at 8.9 million tonnes at 1.01% copper, 3.67% zinc, 0.77% lead, 0.16 g/t gold and 26 g/t silver — does not include provisions for cobalt mineralisation.
As a result, the historical findings ensure the cobalt mineralisation at Sandiego will become an exploration focus.
Chasing cobalt
AuKing CEO Paul Williams said: “The identification of further significant cobalt intersections from previous drilling at Koongie Park provides AKN with confirmation of a reasonably broad occurrence of cobalt mineralisation across the deposit.
“The presence of these levels of cobalt mineralisation at Sandiego establishes Koongie Park as a potential contributor to the Australian ‘battery metals’ project.
“AKN’s latest resource estimate for Koongie Park does not include any of this cobalt mineralisation.
“A focus of future drilling and geological modelling will be to capture cobalt in future resource estimates.”
Turning back time
At Sandiego, AKN has identified zones of cobalt mineralisation that were intersected more than a decade ago.
In addition, as part of its own drilling program last year, AKN reported cobalt mineralisation across the program’s drill holes.
A detailed review of the historical drilling database at Sandiego indicated several holes had not been assayed for cobalt mineralisation prior to 2010.
As part of a follow-up expedition, AKN’s exploration team was able to identify roughly 400 remnant drill core samples from 10 historical drill holes that could be further assayed.
Promisingly, eight out of the 10 holes that were re-assayed intersected anomalous cobalt mineralisation. Highlights include:
- 60 metres at 1.79% copper, 5.96% zinc, 58 g/t silver and 0.1% cobalt from 191 metres, including 12 metres at 2.95% copper, 9.80% zinc, 76 g/t silver and 0.24% cobalt from 214 metres;
- 21 metres at 2.55% copper, 0.18% zinc, 17 g/t silver and 0.13% cobalt from 289 metres, including 7 metres at 3.79% copper, 0.15% zinc, 20 g/t silver and 0.27% cobalt from 298 metres;
- 18.4 metres at 6.22% copper, 1.02% zinc, 8 g/t silver and 0.07% cobalt from 108.6 metres, including 2 metres at 1.52% copper, 0.04% zinc, 7 g/t silver and 0.12% cobalt; and
- 8.87 metres at 0.18% copper, 9.41% zinc, 38 g/t silver and 0.14% cobalt from 156 metres.
AKN believes these recent assays provide a strong foundation for ongoing exploration initiatives, which will focus on identifying additional cobalt mineralisation at Sandiego.