Core Exploration sampling highlights mineralisation at Blueys
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Core Exploration (ASX: CXO) has completed its first reconnaissance mapping and surface rock-chip sampling foray at the Blueys prospect, situated within the company’s Albarta project in the Northern Territory.
Core said the recently-conducted sampling program had confirmed high-grade silver and high-grade copper at surface at Blueys.
The Albarta project covers over 2,000 square kilometres of the newly-recognised IOCG Aileron Province, located 100km northeast of Alice Springs.
Core’s tenements include a number of significant copper, gold, silver, uranium and rare earth element (REE) mineral occurrences.
“The company believes that the existing evidence of mineralisation and recently confirmed IOCG prospectivity by Geoscience Australia verifies the strategy that the company has pursued to take an early position in an area it believes will be Australia’s new copper IOCG exploration hot-spot,” Core Exploration said in its ASX announcement.
Core described the samples taken from Blueys as intensely altered, granitic textured host rock with secondary copper mineral veins containing malachite and azurite.
According to the company silver assays taken on the samples have come in over the maximum level (1,500g/t silver) able to be measured by the standard assay technique that was used.
Core has now sent these high-grade silver samples from Blueys to undergo a specialised analytical technique in order to have the silver grades assayed more accurately.
Blueys has been subjected to some previous exploration activity, which focused on very shallow mineralisation.
This work consisted of surface and soil geochemistry, ground and airborne geophysics and shallow drilling.
Core said the previous shallow RC drilling was undertaken in 2001 to a maximum depth of 52m and confirmed the presence of a surficial high-grade copper, silver and lead supergene mineralisation.
“Mineralisation sampled by Core appears to occur in the basement in brecciated and carbonate-silica altered granite,” the company said.
“Core therefore believes that Bluey’s prospect is related to Meso-Proterozoic basement as opposed to the previously interpreted target in the overlying Neo-Proterozoic (younger) Bitter Springs Formation.
“This greatly increases the prospectivity for a much larger scale mineralising system at Blueys.
“Other evidence for an extensive mineralising system at play in the region includes a number of occurrences of copper mineralisation and gossans in the surrounding area, indications of primary mineralisation in basement and sizeable radiometric and magnetic anomalies coincident with Blueys.”