Altona claims new copper discovery at Roseby
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Altona Mining (ASX:AOH) has claimed a new copper discovery at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Roseby project near Mt Isa in Queensland.
The discovery was made at Turkey Creek, located around two kilometres east of Altona’s 100 million tonne Little Eva deposit.
Copper deposits in the central portion of the Roseby project and the location of Turkey Creek. Source: Company announcement
Altona completed in 7 Reverse Circulation (RC) drill holes and 3,571 metres of Rotary Air Blast (RAB) drilling over a 4.5 square kilometre area to test the Turkey Creek target and to test the area it has planned for infrastructure associated with the proposed Little Eva plant.
The Turkey Creek drilling was targeted to test malachite (green copper oxide) in outcrops over 800 metres of strike.
The mineralisation had initially been tested by two scout RC holes drilled by Xstrata Copper in 2011.
Altona said its current program had combined both RAB and RC drilling to define the extent of the mineralisation and the potential for an economic deposit.
Highlights from the RC drill intercepts include:
– 21 metres at 0.65 per cent copper, 0.02 grams per tonne gold from 23 metres;
– 24m at 0.62 per cent copper, 0.03g/t gold from 16m;
– 32m at 0.57 per cent copper, 0.02g/t gold from 61m;
– 41m at 0.47 per cent copper, 0.00g/t gold from 37m; and
– 38m at 0.46 per cent copper, 0.00g/t gold from 45m.
“The new copper deposit at Turkey Creek, discovered so close to Little Eva, reinforces the enormous potential for discovery within the greater Roseby project,” Altona Mining managing director Dr Alistair Cowden said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“The deposit clearly has potential to provide additional feed to the proposed Little Eva Plant.
“There are a great number of similar targets to Turkey Creek within our 1,500 square kilometre tenure.
“Targets include combined copper anomalous drill and soil results, old workings and geophysical targets.
“Targets adjacent to the main Roseby deposits may have had recent work but those 10 to 30 kilometres distant may have had little or no exploration in the past 30 years.
“The Roseby tenements also show clear potential for both Dugald River zinc-lead-silver and Mary Kathleen uranium targets.”
The seven RC holes drilled at Turkey Creek all intersected low to medium grade copper mineralisation including higher grade zones up to 5 metres at 1.18 per cent copper.
Alton said the drilling has confirmed a 400m strike length of mineralisation with widths ranging up to 50m.
The mineralisation encountered by the RC drilling is open down dip and along strike to the north and to the south.
The company explained the sulphide mineralisation appears to be chalcocite dominant and low in gold, which is a new mineralisation style for the Roseby deposits.
Altona said the drilling has provided it with sufficient data for an initial inferred resource estimate to be completed later this year.
