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Mining
Special Report: Alicanto is ‘cracking the code’ in its hunt for monster gold-copper deposits in Sweden’s mineral-rich — but historically misunderstood — Bergslagen district.
Alicanto Minerals (ASX:AQI) has enjoyed considerable early success at its projects in the historic mining district of Bergslagen in Southern Sweden.
The explorer has now applied for an additional 158sqkm of prospective tenure after uncovering a number of new, completely undrilled copper-gold targets near the flagship Wolf Mountain prospect.
Of these new targets, the Heden prospect is now a high-priority drill target for the company.
Alicanto calls it “the best example of regional scale copper skarn mineralisation” in the Bergslagen district observed to date, with historical rock chips of up to 3.1 per cent copper alongside regionally significant limestone units and interpreted causative intrusions.
“The degree of alteration observed at Heden, coupled with observed chalcopyrite, chalcocite and bornite mineralisation indicates that the prospect is proximal to the target area for high-grade, high-tonnage, copper skarn mineralisation,” chief executive officer Peter George says.
“This represents a high-priority drill target for the company.”
The company can now advance directly to ground electromagnetics (EM) surveying before drilling, which is proposed for the upcoming third quarter.
Last year, initial work by Alicanto uncovered a previously unrecognised, 14km long large-scale hydrothermal system at Wolf Mountain, prospective for high-grade and bulk-tonnage copper-gold deposits.
In February, Alicanto completed six diamond holes for 964.65m in maiden drilling at Wolf Mountain.
The explorer was testing multiple induced polarisation (IP) targets coincident with surface rock chip results of up to 11.9 per cent copper and 2.9 grams per tonne (g/t) gold across four separate mineralised trends over more than 1km strike length.
This drilling has defined widespread broad and strongly altered skarn mineralisation “thought to represent the margins of a potentially large mineralised system”, Alicanto says.
Encouraging grades of up to 2.1 per cent copper, 69g/t silver and 1.3 per cent zinc were returned, including a 7.2m interval grading 0.41 per cent copper, 33.7m from surface.
Alicanto now believes the main target lies to the south of the drill area. Preparations for the geophysical IP survey at Wolf Mountain and the ground EM survey at Naverberg are ongoing with work expected to commence in June 2020.
In November, the first two drill holes from a maiden reconnaissance drill program at Naverberg hit exceptional grades like 9.5 per cent copper, 16g/t gold, 285g/t silver, 8.2 per cent zinc, and 3.9 per cent lead.
This is an exciting time for the company’s Swedish projects, George says.
“The team has uncovered multiple VMS and copper-gold skarn targets that we believe are all related to the same geological events (including the same limestone mineralised horizon) that led to the formation of the amazing Falun deposit (28 million tonnes at 4 per cent copper, 4g/t gold, 5 per cent zinc, 35g/t silver, and 2 per cent lead),” he says.
“The team has been very busy out in the field over the last three months and we are very excited about what we have managed to uncover.”
With the field season ongoing Alicanto geologists are working to better define drill targeting for the upcoming drill campaign.
“The next few months will be utilised to refine the model of the area through field work and geophysical surveys with the next range of drill targets vectoring in on the copper skarn and VMS targets in the area,” George says.
“Further information on the plans for the coming six months will be released soon.”
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