Kincora uncovers veritable copper-gold porphyry smorgasbord at Trundle project

Kincora Copper has confirmed the presence of an extensive multiple system gold-copper porphyry complex at its brownfields Trundle project in NSW.

Kincora Copper (ASX:KCC) revealed today that all five diamond holes of the current drilling program at the flagship Trundle project have successfully demonstrated the extensive scale of the mineralised zone, with multiple systems confirmed.

The company drilled four adjacent mineralised system targets, which returned shallow higher grade and broad gold-copper mineralisation.

Kincora has now identified a 3.2km gold-copper mineralised strike, which remains open to the north and south, confirming it is up to 900m wide (open) and extends down to a vertical depth of greater than 800m.

“The results of this program further illustrate the very extensive scale (3.2km and open) of the mineralised zone at the southern portion of the Trundle license,” technical committee chair John Holliday explained.

“The zone has demonstrated higher grade potential, including most recent assay results of up to 2.24% copper and 1.75g/t gold.”

The Macquarie Arc, which sits in the prolific Lachlan Fold and hosts the Trundle project, is well known for its massive porphyry systems and considered a world-class porphyry district.

Porphyry deposits provide 60-70% of global copper supply and range from 100 million to several billion tonnes, ranking them among the largest ore deposits on earth, but are generally lower grade. They also frequently occur in clusters of deposits along mineralised trends.

But just three juniors, including Kincora, are doing proper exploration and drilling in the region.

Holliday, a leading porphyry expert and lead-discoverer of Newcrest Mining’s (ASX:NCM) Cadia deposit – also located in the Macquarie Arc, said the most northern three holes intersected significant zones of mineralisation and alteration from near surface.

Top hits comprised 2.9m at 0.95% copper and 0.62 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, including 0.9m at 2.24% copper and 1.75g/t gold from 131m, at the Botfield prospect and 135.5m at 0.23g/t gold, 0.02% copper and 10 parts per million (ppm) molybdenum from 220.5m at the North-East Gold Zone prospect.

The North-East Gold Zone prospect remains open, and drilling returned the strongest and longest interval of potassic alteration with sulphides to date at Trundle.

Meanwhile, Holliday said an extensive mineralised magnetite skarn had been discovered by Kincora to the south, along a 900m northwest-southeast trending strike from over 800m vertical depth in the Southern Extension Zone to only 240m at the adjacent Botfield prospect.

“This is a very significant mineralising skarn system, with the porphyry intrusive source rocks and pathways to the skarn open for further exploration,” he said.

“Alteration zones and grades encountered in all holes of this program are suggestive of being in a proximal porphyry setting and continue to strongly support our exploration concept that Trundle has the potential for a series or cluster of porphyry-related ore deposits.”

Once Kincora has the remaining assays in hand, it plans to workshop more drill targets at the Trundle project as the ongoing drilling program seeks to test a total of 13 existing gold-copper discovery opportunities across a pipeline of five projects. This is in addition to the Exploration Alliance with Earth AI for the Cundumbul project.

As the company waits for final results from Trundle, and the workshop at the end of the month, it has started maiden drilling at the Condobolin project to test existing high-grade and shallow gold and base metal targets at the Meritilga, Phoenix and Tilga prospects.

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.