Lady Mary presents Malachite Resources with good tidings
Malachite Resources (ASX:MAR) has received assays of samples taken from the Lady Mary prospect at the company’s Lorena gold project, located near Cloncurry in northwest Queensland.
According to the company the results have confirmed Lady Mary to be a promising new, gold-rich, copper-gold find, returning impressive gold assays in surface samples, including one of 102 grams per tonne gold and another of 38.9 grams per tonne gold.
Malachite reported the identification of Lady Mary in September 2012, and at the time, assay results for an initial batch of surface samples were reported, with high copper values and some encouraging gold results.
“Lady Mary is shaping up to be a very important new find for us,” Malachite Resources chief executive Geoff Hiller said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.
“The discovery of a second mineral deposit within five kilometres of our Lorena deposit would have strongly positive implications for the development and longevity of Lorena.
“The very high gold values, accompanied by high copper assays, and their distribution over a substantial area, emphasise the potential at this prospect.
“We particularly like the visible free gold, which should be easy to recover when it comes to mining.”
The Lady Mary prospect is situated on one of Malachite’s wholly-owned exploration permits amongst numerous old workings from early last century on the prospect area, comprising small pits and what appear to be the remnants of some small underground workings.
Lorena gold project – Regional geology and Malachite tenement map. Source: Company announcement
Malachite suggested the distribution of the historical workings indicate mineralisation may be part of a zone up to 40 metres wide and 450 metres long.
The prospect occurs on the contact between the Mt Norna Quartzite and the Toole Creek Volcanics, the same geological setting as the company’s Copperhead prospect, three kilometres south.
The company considers this contact seems to exercise some geological control on mineralisation and Malachite has now begun prospecting the balance of the 7km of strike length of this contact on its other tenements.
This has already resulted in the emergence of a third, as yet unnamed, copper prospect.
Malachite geologists have noted an association of the oxide copper and gold mineralisation seen on surface at Lady Mary with box-work gossan textures, which they feel could indicate primary chalcopyrite at depth and hematite (iron oxide).
The company considers such an association could imply analogy with the iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) style of ore deposit, which is synonymous with the Cloncurry region.
The next phase of field work will map out the Mt Norna Quartzite/Toole Creek Volcanics contact on the company’s tenements and provide further sampling and assays of the mineralisation observed along it.
The most promising targets, including Lady Mary, will then undergo trenching for better exposure and more quantitative sampling, followed by drilling.
