Investigator Resources confirms Nankivel target
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Investigator Resources (ASX: IVR) claimed that assay results and petrological studies of the recent first diamond drill hole drilled at the Nankivel prospect have confirmed the breakthrough discovery of a large porphyry system with copper and gold potential on the northern Eyre Peninsula in South Australia.
The Nankivel prospect lies along an interpreted structural connection three kilometres southeast of the company’s 33 million ounce Paris silver deposit.
Investigator Resources claimed the assay and microscope petrology results had verified the first hole to be drilled at Nankivel to be on the margin of a copper-gold mineralised porphyry system of Olympic Dam age.
The company said the drilling was very encouraging as it had immediately upgraded the Nankivel porphyry copper-gold target, increasing it to be a large untested 1.5 kilometre by 1km area.
Investigator described the drilling result as being a wide intersection of prospective porphyritic monzodiorite with multiple intrusive phases, including abundant actinolite-epidote-chlorite alteration and pyrite mineralisation.
The hole returned narrow one metre intervals of elevated copper (to 0.19 per cent copper) and gold (to 0.47 grams per tonne gold), which coincide with zones of stronger potassic and phyllic alteration and veins typical of mineralised zones that form porphyry deposits.
“Finding a mineralised porphyry system of Olympic Dam age is challenging many of our geological colleagues,” Investigator Resources managing director John Anderson said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“It is the first large porphyry system in South Australia, and the second new deposit style we have uncovered on the northern Eyre Peninsula in the past five years, following our pioneering discovery of epithermal silver at Paris.
“Breakthroughs such as Nankivel reset the geological framework and revitalise the discovery space in which we explore.
“And importantly for Investigator, it puts us in the box seat as first-movers to build on the Company’s work.”
Anderson said the copper and gold assays in the Nankivel hole, while on first impressions appear low grade, gained significance when combined with the equally important petrological analysis of the hole.
This combination confirmed the hole intersected the margin of a large porphyry system with copper and gold mineralisation in the correct alteration phase.
All the right mineralising processes are evident in the hole for a porphyry copper-gold deposit to have formed nearby.
Investigator considers this upgrades the adjacent Nankivel target that is delineated by the same low magnetic signature as the drilled mineralised zone.
“We pre-empted the assay and petrological verification of the exciting Nankivel copper-gold target by already undertaking three shallow holes to obtain more 3-D information close to the first drill collar,” Anderson explained.
“We also initiated an IP geophysical survey, as the usual targeting method for porphyry copper gold targets, to be undertaken over the entire target area in late November.
“Investigator is aiming to drill the new IP targets as early as possible in 2017.”
Email: info@investres.com.au
Website: www.investres.com.au