Induced polarisation work has indicated that Duke’s Quorn copper prospect in Queensland could be much larger than its already sizeable Mt Flora project.

How much larger?

Try 116 million tonnes of potentially mineralised rock, or more than five times larger than Mt Flora, which explains why the company is keen to start a second resource drilling program at the prospect.

Duke Exploration (ASX:DEX) noted the IP survey has mapped three large-scale, well-defined and consistent conductivity anomalies at Quorn that are interpreted potentially to be due to extensive copper, silver and gold sulphide mineralisation like Mt Flora.

Nor is the company shooting blind as historical copper, silver and gold drill results at Quorn have already confirmed the interpretation that the conductivity values at Mt Flora can be used to map bedrock copper, silver and gold mineralisation.

Additionally, a gradient array IP survey has been completed at the Isens mine that suggests that the copper, silver and gold mineralisation that had been mined underground historically could extend to the southwest into the hornfels and be much larger than initially interpreted.

“The geophysical surveys in the southwest of the Bundarra Project area are providing compelling results that continue to confirm our belief that we are exploring a very large mineral system at Bundarra where new discoveries will continue to be made into the future,” chairman Toko Kapea said.

“We suspected the mineral system in the Quorn area might be bigger and more extensive than at Mt Flora and the 3D IP survey has confirmed that the potential mineralised system at Quorn could be more than five times larger than at Mt Flora.

“The new information at Quorn will help with the planning of a second resource drilling program at Quorn that will start as the resource drilling at Mt Flora continues using a second drill rig.”

He added that with soil sampling, 3D IP and Ground EM follow-up surveys have proved effective in providing new targets like the target to the south of Absolon and the gradient array target to the southwest of Isens.

Follow-up drill planning

Duke has finalised planning of follow-up exploration drilling of the 3D IP targets at Quorn and the pole-dipole conductive and chargeability anomaly south of Absolon.

Three RC holes totalling 900m and two holes for 600m will be drilled at Quorn and Absolon respectively to collect detailed down-hole geophysical, geochemical and optical data.

This data will be used to confirm the lithological and geometric relationships of the known copper, silver and gold mineralisation at Quorn, which will lead to planning of a first phase of pattern resource drilling.

A further three holes will be drilled to test the significant conductivity and chargeability anomalies in the near surface to 400m depth just to the south of Absolon.

This is the largest and most depth-extensive conductivity anomaly mapped at Bundarra to date, has never been tested before and could lead to the discovery of a new style of mineralisation at Bundarra.

Based on the pole-dipole anomalies, that could be more extensive than the targets currently being tested at Bundarra, including Quorn.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Duke Exploration, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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