Impact drilling targets Apsley’s big porphyry copper-gold potential

Drilling is underway at Impact’s Apsley prospect in NSW that bears a marked resemblance to major porphyry copper-gold deposits such as Cadia-Ridgeway.

Located within the company’s Commonwealth project in the famed Lachlan Fold Belt, Apsley is a large soil geochemistry anomaly that has a core zone about 2,000m long and 500m wide which is defined by copper-gold-platinum-palladium.

This kind of anomaly is characteristic of alkalic porphyry deposits such as Newcrest’s giant Cadia-Ridgeway and China Molybdenum’s North Parkes mines that are also located within the Lachlan Fold Belt.

Adding further interest, Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) notes that the core is surrounded by a larger zone or halo of zinc, lead and manganese – a well-recognised pattern that is seen around many significant porphyry copper-gold deposits such as the Wafi-Golpu deposit in Papua New Guinea.

The company also noted that an association with magnetic anomalies may represent the parent intrusion to the system or “skarn” alteration directly associated with copper-gold mineralisation as seen at Alkane Resources’ Boda discovery.

Taken together, it is not hard to see why the company considers the targets at Apsley to be some of if not the most prospective targets in its entire portfolio.

Apsley drill program

The initial 3,000m reverse circulation drill program at Apsley will test a number of coincident induced polarisation geophysical and geochemical anomalies within the identified core.

These anomalies start close to surface and extend to considerable depth while appearing to link up along trend.

All anomalies are located within e soil geochemistry anomaly and support the company’s belief that the whole area is potentially part of one large mineralised system.

Drilling will focus on five priority traverses which show an excellent correlation between the IP and the soil geochemistry results.

The first traverse to be drilled contains two very strong chargeability anomalies – separated by a resistivity anomaly – that extend from surface to a depth of at least 300m.

These anomalies lie directly below strong geochemical responses dominated by gold, platinum and palladium and together define a target zone up to 600m wide.

Impact notes that the chargeability anomalies can be tracked across numerous traverses, implying continuity to the anomalies over hundreds of metres of trend in places.

This article was developed in collaboration with Impact Minerals, 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.