Pic: Getty
Mining
Kincora’s drilling has now almost doubled the strike of gold-copper mineralisation to over 1.3km at the Trundle Park prospect, which remains open, and from largely only near-surface to up to 750m depths, with latest results unearthing new higher-grade zones.
Kincora Copper (ASX:KCC) has uncovered further evidence it is drilling into a large-scale Macquarie Arc porphyry system at its Trundle project in the highly fertile Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales, with new drill results comparing favourably to Newcrest Mining’s (ASX:NCM) Cadia operation and the neighbouring Northparkes mine.
Drilling hit three new mineralised skarn zones in the most recent hole (TRDD029), with the combined interval returned for some 213m.
So far Kincora has only received the assays for the Upper skarn (the first zone), but that delivered a higher grade 36m at 0.68 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 0.29% copper (1.17g/t gold equivalent), including 4m at 1.19g/t gold and 0.59% copper (2.19g/t gold equivalent) from 732m.
While cautious on calling grades for the other two mineralised intervals and skarns before assay results are back, expected in about five weeks, Kincora states the Middle skarn zone is thicker at 139.3m visual width, with “abundant visual chalcopyrite” and with some very nice-looking core photos in the press release.
This bodes well for favourable copper and gold grades, and potentially higher grades to those already announced for TRDD029.
However, to put the assay results to hand for the Upper skarn zone into perspective, the grades already stack up well when compared to Cadia. The last reported quarter produced at a head grade of 0.82g/t gold and 0.35% copper (1.41g/t gold equivalent) with an all-in sustaining cost margin of $1,519 an ounce (ie profit!) from the Cadia East porphyry.
Kincora said this illustrated the favourable economic potential of bulk mining operations in the Macquarie Arc at not dissimilar depths to the mineralised zones in TRDD029.
Technical committee chair John Holliday, ex-Newcrest explorationist and discoverer of Cadia, said hole TRDD029 returned very encouraging assay and visual results in newly discovered magnetite skarn zones typical of Macquarie Arc porphyry systems.
“TRDD029 opens up a significant search space south, east and west of previous drilling,” he noted.
“This hole has further confirmed and expanded a very large mineralised system at Trundle Park that hosts the potential for a cluster of higher-grade skarn and porphyry intrusion bodies.”
Skarn deposits are generally formed on the peripheral to, and mineralising fluids sourced from, porphyry systems. While skarns can support significant mining operations in their own right they are more often developed concurrently with the causative intrusion and porphyry deposit(s), which are generally a magnitude larger in tonnage than the skarn.
As outlined in Kincora’s updated corporate presentation the porphyry/skarn ratio of Cadia East to the Little Cadia skarn is estimated at 28:1.
A well mineralised interval across the cumulative 213m total width of skarns returned in the three zones for hole TRDD029 certainly would be suggestive of a potentially very large causative porphyry intrusive source for these fluids.
Holliday said the next hole being drilled (TRDD030) at Trundle Park would provide a better understanding of the new mineralised zones and coverage of the previously untested southern strike of the currently defined ∼1.3km mineralised system.
Hole TRDD029 was drilled to follow up on the nearer surface intrusion potential recognised in the previous drill hole, as well as test the western and southern strike for both skarn and porphyry type intrusion mineralisation at depth in a region of very limited deeper drilling.
Full assay results for TRDD029, coupled with bedding and true width data from TRDD030, will assist planning for further follow up targeting.
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.
