Pic: Via Getty Images
Mining
Kincora’s fourth hole into the emerging Southern Extension Zone discovery has returned the highest-grade intercept yet from the Trundle Project.
Kincora Copper (ASX:KCC) is adding more weight to the economic case for a large scale porphyry or porphyry-related (skarn) deposit at its Trundle Project, with drilling of the highly prospective Southern Extension Zone (SEZ) returning the highest grade primary mineralisation interval drilled to date at that target and across the wider Trundle Project.
That top hit measured 34m at 1.02 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.24% copper, including 2m at 12.6g/t gold and 2.32% copper, within a broader zone of 104m at 0.46g/t gold and 0.11% copper.
The high-grade interval was driven by a distinct and small vein with a review ongoing to assist following up its source.
Ore grade copper and gold in skarn has been intersected within the SEZ over at least a 330m SSE strike and 225m W-E wide system, and is open.
Kincora’s primary exploration target is a large and high-grade intrusive porphyry, which is thought to be the source of the mineralisation in the skarn at the SEZ and also related to this high-grade vein.
Such a setting is not uncommon in the Macquarie Arc porphyry belt. Australia’s largest gold miner, Newcrest Mining (ASX:NCM), has a similar setting at its flagship Cadia mine, which is Australia’s largest gold mine.
For the March 2022 quarter, Newcrest mined 0.86g/t of gold and 0.40% copper from the Cadia East deposit at Cadia with a negative all-in sustaining cost of $205 per ounce of gold. The Cadia East porphyry deposit is located under a skarn deposit and at non-dissimilar depths to the SEZ at Trundle.
Porphyry deposits are the holy grail for explorers because they supply roughly 60% of the world’s copper currently and there is an increasing focus on these large deposits as end users look to shore up more supply to feed the clean energy transition.
“The broad ore grade intersection, including a very high-grade, chalcopyrite-rich zone in hole TRDD032, further confirms the scale of the Southern Extension Zone (SEZ) and the potential at Trundle for an economic porphyry or porphyry-related (skarn) orebody,” John Holliday, Technical Committee chair, and Peter Leaman, VP of Exploration, both noted.
Chalcopyrite is a primary ore mineral of copper and occurs in most sulphide mineral deposits around the world.
“The extensive mineralised footprint at surface across the wider Trundle Park and adjacent prospect areas – Botfield to the south/southeast and Dunn’s to the north – provides ample exploration space for new discoveries/deposits in what is clearly a similar geological setting to the Cadia and Northparkes porphyry mineral centres,” Holliday and Leaman said.
While Kincora appears well on the way to confirming the first economic discovery at the Trundle Project, its exploration concept is that there is a cluster of other porphyry deposits also at the Trundle Park prospect along strike. Over a 4.5km strike at Northparkes there are 10 porphyry deposits (to date).
And Holliday would know better than just about anyone what to look for given he is credited as the principal originator, project manager and led the discovery phases at Cadia, and being a foremost figure on Macquarie Arc porphyries.
Kincora’s Trundle project is located in Australia’s foremost porphyry province – the Macquarie Arc in the Lachlan Fold Belt, which is also where the Cadia and Northparkes mines are located.
The project is favourably situated in a brownfield environment that hosts up to a third of the Northparkes Igneous Complex, a proven world-class mineral system which already hosts a plus 26-million-oz gold equivalent mineral endowment at the Northparkes mine (Australia’s second largest porphyry mine behind Cadia).
The Northparkes and Cadia mines both host skarn and porphyry resources.
Kincora has now extended the mineralised strike at the Trundle Park prospect from 700m to 1300m, and open, and the skarn zones in the SEZ up to 660m in width. The skarn system at the Trundle Park prospect is believed to be the largest skarn system in the Macquarie Arc.
The four completed holes at the SEZ to date have confirmed a tabular, bedded, mineralised skarn system across multiple horizons with greater than 120m cumulative skarn widths in three of the four holes.
Kincora said this was very encouraging, large, and significant in the context of the geology and mineralisation within the Macquarie Arc and assisted to provide various vectors for follow up drilling.
Maiden aircore drilling at Trundle has also returned favourable results at the Dunn’s North and Ravenswood South prospects, which are located 3km north and 5.5km northwest, respectively, from the Trundle Park prospect and SEZ discovery.
Three areas have been identified for a second phase drilling program seeking to follow up and expand zones hosting over 600 parts per million copper and/or over 0.1g/t gold. These grades and settings compare favourably to the aircore discovery holes for the E27 and E22 deposits at Northparkes.
Meanwhile, an advanced review for follow up priority diamond drilling has uncovered a new open pit target, named the North-East Gold Zone, which hosts near-surface gold grading at up to 2.6g/t over 400m x 150m and remaining open in several directions.
This formed part of a review of the SEZ and Botfield prospects that are expected to significantly expand the existing 1.3km mineralised strike at the Trundle Park prospect both to the north and the south.
Kincora is currently waiting on assays for six prospects across two projects – Trundle and Fairholme – including for a recently completed diamond hole drilled at the Mordialloc North-East prospect in the northern portion of the Trundle project.
This article was developed in collaboration with Kincora Copper, 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.
Mining
Mining
Mining
Get the latest Stockhead news delivered free to your inbox.
