Lefroy poised to drill highly-prospective Coogee South prospect

Lefroy is gearing up to start 150-hole aircore drill program in August targeting the prospective Coogee South prospect within its wholly-owned Eastern Lefroy tenements.

Coogee South started off as one of its primary targets at the time of its initial public offering in October 2016 as it adjoins and contains the immediate southern strike extension of the shallow, high-grade third-party Coogee open pit, which produced 20,000oz of gold at an average grade of 5 grams per tonne (g/t).

Coogee South also sits within a geological and geophysical setting similar to Lefroy Exploration’s (ASX:LEX) Burns copper-gold prospect about 14km to the southeast.

However, the prospect was bundled together with the rest of the Western Lefroy joint venture project with Gold Fields where it was left essentially untouched until it was excised from the JV project and returned to the company’s complete control in June this year.

Lefroy is also planning to carry out more step-out reverse circulation drilling to further extend the Burns system and map out the extent of the eastern porphyry.

Recent drilling has successfully extended the Burns mineral system to the north and south while assays are still pending for four diamond holes and nine RC holes completed at the prospect in July.

The company has also completed aeromagnetic surveys over both Burns and Coogee South with data currently being processed.

The new data will help refine the upcoming drill program at Coogee South and facilitate the generation of additional targets external to a buried intrusion that has a similar magnetic response to Burns.

“The drill ready targets in our portfolio provide us with optionality while we wait on assay results from the diamond and RC drill holes at Burns,” managing director Wade Johnson said.

“Coogee South is one of those priority target areas and we are excited to be soon drilling our priority target outlined in our 2016 prospectus.”

lefroy exploration burns coogee south — Lefroy Gold Project with locations of Burns and Coogee South. Pic: Supplied

Burns prospect

The Burns prospect is situated on the eastern margin of the large Burns Intrusion, which does not outcrop but features a distinctive annular aeromagnetic and gravity geophysical signature.

Lefroy believes that there is a ‘genetic’ relationship between the Burns intrusions, so further work is intended to establish the association between the larger Burns intrusion and the diorite porphyry intrusions intersected at the Burns prospect.

Broad, high-grade gold mineralisation is hosted within the newly-discovered hematite-pyrite-chalcopyrite-magnetite altered diorite Eastern Porphyry, which is open to the north and south.

The company considers the copper and gold mineralisation hosted by both the diorite porphyry, basalt and now massive magnetite to be a new style of mineralisation in the area.

It expects the recent aeromagnetic survey of the Burns Intrusion to provide refined imagery to enhance existing data and better define the magnetic anomalies to the north of the Burns prospect both on land and on Lake Randall.

This will support planning of a broader step out RC drill program to the north of Burns that is scheduled for commencement in September 2021.

Coogee South prospect

Lefroy also believes that Coogee South is part of a larger gold system that surrounds a buried felsic intrusion.

Besides being immediately south of Ramelius Resources’ (ASX:RMS) Coogee open pit that was mined in 2014, further evidence comes from the May 2021 discovery of gold and copper mineralisation by Victory Mines (ASX:VIC) to the north and south of the Coogee open pit.

The company’s priority target is the area immediately along strike to the south of the Coogee open pit, where RC drilling in 2006 recorded a best intersection of 17m at 1.67g/t gold from a depth of 99m. This target remains open down dip and along strike.

The existing drilling results are supported by a gold anomaly defined by rotary air blast drilling completed in the mid 1990s that extends for about 1500m to the south of the VIC-LEX tenement boundary.

This article was developed in collaboration with Lefroy 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.