THE DRILL SERGEANT: Voyager Resources has claimed a further discovery at its KM copper porphyry project in the South Gobi region of southern Mongolia.

Initial drilling on the Gaans prospect at KM has intersected:

–    46 metres at 1.1 per cent copper and 14.1 grams per tonne silver from 16 metres; and

–    38m at 0.88 per cent copper and 4.5 g/t silver from 22m.

The Gaans is located approximately 2.5 kilometres east of the company’s previously reported Cughur discovery.

Voyager is confident Gaans is hosted in the same magmatic hydrothermal breccia as Cughur.

The company is currently undertaking exploration and development drilling at both prospect as well as at other regional targets.

There are now five rigs operating at KM including two Reverse Circulation (RC) drill rigs and three diamond core rigs.

Recent results from the Cughur discovery include:

–    107m at 1.5 per cent copper and 1.4 g/t silver from 20m;

–    72m at 0.8 per cent copper and 2.9 g/t silver from 32m; and

–    24m at 1.4 per cent copper and 4.0 g/t silver from 54m.

Voyager said that completed diamond tails have extended previously reported mineralisation in completed RC drilling at Cughur and include:

–    116m at 2.4 per cent copper and 7.2 g/t silver from 30m;

–    36m at 1.7 per cent copper and 5.5 g/t silver from 70m;

–    130m at 0.9 per cent copper and 2.5 g/t silver from 22m; and

–    90m at 0.7 per cent copper and 1.2 g/t silver from 48m.

Voyager said the ongoing exploration and drilling at KM is strengthening the company’s belief that it is an exceptional porphyry copper project that has the potential to be a company making asset.

“From this work, Voyager is advancing its understanding of the geology and mineralisation at KM, with Voyager now believing that the magmatic hydrothermal breccias intersected in drilling at Gaans and Cughur form a continuous semi-circular annulus to the south of a large granitic complex,” Voyager said in its announcement to the ASX.

“The hydrothermal breccia is interpreted to have a surface projected area exceeding 5.2 square kilometres.

“This is mainly inferred from modelling of the magnetic and IP geophysical surveys and supported by geological mapping where mapped outcrops and sub crops of quartz tourmaline breccias occur over a 5 kilometre east to west corridor covering the circular annulus.

“If this proves to be correct, KM would qualify as one of the largest breccia complexes found to date.”

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Emmerson Resources has announced an Indicated and Inferred JORC Resource estimation at its Gecko and Orlando copper/gold deposits located within the Tennant Creek Mineral Field (TCMF) in the Northern Territory.

The new Resource estimation has come in at of 50,800 tonnes of copper and 70,000 ounces of gold.

The company said it aims to expand on the estimation through an aggressive drilling campaign in coming months.

“These initial resource estimates for Gecko and Orlando are a great start which we hope to grow as we step out within the respective mine corridors,” Emmerson Resources managing director Rob Bills said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“The existing development and infrastructure at Gecko and Orlando plus 100 per cent ownership of the Warrego mill provides Emmerson with a big head start for a return to production.

“The recent success at Goanna and Monitor indicate great potential for delineating additional resources and adding to the Gecko and Orlando metal inventory.

“This near mine potential has been overlooked by previous explorers and has come from the application of new geological concepts combined with flying the world’s most powerful helicopter EM geophysical survey.”

Emmerson recently announced the discovery of the Goanna mineralisation which yielded intersections including:

–    21 metres at 2.63 per cent copper from 297metres, including 7metres at 4.96 per cent copper from 299 metres.

This round of drilling also intersected:

–    2m at 4.9 per cent copper from 289m.

Emmerson said the ore it encountered at Goanna featured high grade bismuth, which it suggested is historically a strong indicator for the nearby presence of gold.

The new Goanna discovery is situated within the “Gecko Structural Corridor” and follows recent encouraging drilling results and discovery at Monitor where the company achieved high-grade copper intercepts of:

–    27m at 1.75 per cent copper, including 6m at 2.67 per cent copper and 1812 parts per million bismuth; and

–    6m at 3.53 per cent copper occurring approximately 200m below the surface (297m down the drill hole).

Emmerson’s recently-completed independent JORC compliant resource statement has estimated Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources for both Gecko and Orlando of 2,460,000 tonnes of ore grading 2.1per cent copper or five grams per tonne gold equivalent resulting in 50,800 tonnes of copper metal or 390,000 ounces gold equivalent.

“The Goanna and Monitor discoveries have important implications, not only for the near mine exploration around Gecko and Orlando but also for greenfields exploration within the remainder of the some 3,300 square kilometre Emmerson tenements,” Bills continued.

“Particularly as the style and signature of these discoveries is very different to the historic ironstone hosted deposits.

“Thus HeliTEM continues to provide some new insights into the TCMF and has the potential to unlock a new generation of sulphide rich deposits within our project area.”

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Follow-up drilling conducted by Breakaway Resources at the company’s Sandy Creek copper-gold prospect in North Queensland has returned encouraging copper-gold intersections.

The company said it considered the results confirm the continuity of the mineralisation and highlight potential for extensions both along strike and down-dip.

Breakaway has received assay results for the first four Reverse Circulation (RC) holes drilled as part of the current 22-hole (3,700m) RC and diamond drilling program.

Notable results so far include:

–    3 metres at 3.68 per cent copper, 0.57grams per tonne gold from 47 metres;

–    6m at 1.21 per cent copper, 0.60g/t gold from 114m, including 2m at 2.46 per cent copper, 0.63g/t gold from 118m; and

–    7m at 1.06 per cent copper, 0.33g/t gold from 53m, including 2m at 1.75 per cent copper, 0.55g/t gold from 58m.

The company is confident these results provide evidence of a new copper-gold system at the Sandy Creek prospect, which lies within its 100 per cent-owned Eloise exploration project, located 70 kilometres south-east of Cloncurry.

Breakaway has completed 16 RC holes as part of the current program.

In addition to the intercepts already mentioned, the company said nine of the remaining twelve holes also intersected zones of shear-hosted quartz veining, silica-carbonate alteration and disseminated copper sulphides.

These zones have ranged in down-hole width from 2m to 54m.

Six of these intersections contain internal zones of massive and / or semi – massive copper sulphide mineralisation:

–    4m of semi-massive sulphides from 115m;

–    2m of semi-massive sulphides from 67m;

–    2m of semi-massive sulphides from 44m;

–    1m of massive sulphide from 65m;

–    1m of massive sulphide from 37m; and

–    2m of semi-massive sulphides from 37m, 1m of massive sulphide from 62m, 4m of semi-massive sulphides from 70m, and 1m of semi-massive sulphide from 80m.

“Not only do these results confirm the prospect’s internal continuity of mineralisation over 600 metres strike length, but they also highlight the strong potential for extensions both along strike and down-dip,” Breakaway Resources managing director David Hutton said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Given the prospect’s close proximity to the Eloise copper mine and the ongoing drilling, we believe that there is real opportunity to quickly generate a potentially economic resource at Sandy Creek.”

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Recent trenching work carried out by Goldminex Resources at its Unebu prospect in Papua New Guinea has produced encouraging rock chip copper and gold assays, the company said is typical of porphyry copper-gold deposits.

Unebu is one of the company’s eight key prospects located within areas totalling 11 square kilometres that Goldminex considers to demonstrate copper and gold anomalous soil sample geochemistry, at the Liamu project in the Owen Stanley Ranges region of PNG.

The company is currently undertaking a detailed exploration program in order to further assess the tenor of the porphyry copper-gold mineralisation and define drill targets.

Highlights from the trenching activity include:

–    55 metres at 0.56 grams per tonne gold, including 28 metres at 0.92 grams per tonne gold (open);

–    47m at 0.35 per cent copper including 28m at 0.47 per cent copper (open);

–    25m at 0.53g/t gold and 0.26 per cent copper (open); and

–    27m at 0.33g/t gold and 0.19 per cent copper (open).

The current trench work is testing the western edge of a 650m by 250m area hosting potassic alteration and mineralisation at the Unebu prospect.

Goldminex has a 4,000m diamond drilling program ready to commence in early November that will cover Unebu as well as three other key prospects.

“We are extremely pleased with the results that we have received to date from Unebu and early indications are consistent with this emerging prospect potentially hosting a substantial porphyry copper-gold deposit,” Goldminex Resources chief executive officer Sandy Moyle said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“We are currently conducting further exploration activities at Liamu to gain a better understanding of the nature of this large system and the extent of the initial encouraging results.
 
“Our knowledge of Unebu and three other key targets within Liamu will be further enhanced through undertaking a 4,000 metre diamond drilling program, scheduled for early November 2011.”

Work carried out by Goldmiex to date at Unebu has identified the target 650m x 250m area hosting extensive zones of rock chip samples containing greater than 0.1g/t gold and/or greater than 0.1 per cent copper.

The company said the assay results it has received so far suggest the Unebu prospect is a porphyry system with a 2:1 gold to copper ratio with the copper-gold mineralisation having a strong association with molybdenum.

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Coventry Resources has received analytical results from a recently completed drilling program carried out at the company’s Cameron gold project in Ontario, Canada.

The latest results are for 34 of the 35 outstanding holes from the program, which comprised a total of 299 holes for 44,135 metres.

These holes were drilled in order for Coventry to evaluate the northern and northwestern extensions of the one million ounce-plus Cameron gold deposit.

“Very high-grade gold mineralisation was intersected in one of these holes, which was drilled to evaluate the down-plunge extension of northern end of the Cameron gold deposit,” Coventry Resources said in its ASX announcement.

Results from this hole included:

–    9.1 metres at 11.91 grams per tonne gold from 256.0 metres, including 0.35 metres at 289.0 grams per tonne gold from 262.7 metres.

“The intersection of bonanza-grade gold mineralisation in this drill hole, which follows the recently reported intersection of 3.4 metres at 58.73 g/t gold, including 0.6 metres at 320.0 g/t gold further confirms the potential to delineate additional very high-grade quartz vein sets within the Cameron gold deposit that have until now been largely unrecognised,” Coventry said.

“Numerous other holes drilled to evaluate the northern and northwestern extensions of the Cameron gold deposit also intersected high-grade gold mineralisation.”

Recent results include:

–    4m at 6.18 g/t gold from 171.3m, including 1m at 19.10 g/t gold from 173.3m;

–    1m at 36.40 g/t gold from 263.2m;

–    5m at 4.48 g/t gold from 64m;

–    2.8m at 4.13 g/t gold from 75.3m; and

–    2.5m at 4.29 g/t gold from 28.5m.

Coventry said it considered these results have provided further confirmation of additional thicker, higher-grade shoots of mineralisation immediately along strike from the main mineralised zone at the Cameron gold deposit.

The company said the recent drilling had also confirmed that these shoots have significant depth.

Despite recent intensive drilling, mineralisation to the north and northwest of the Cameron gold deposit remains open along strike and at depth.

The current mineral resource estimate for the Cameron gold deposit currently sits at:

–    11.3 million tonnes at 2.77 grams per tonne gold for one million ounces of gold.

This estimate has not been recalculated since the drilling program began.

Coventry indicated that a new resource upgrade is anticipated to be finalised during November 2011.