Maiden diamond drilling at QMines’ past-producing Mt Chalmers copper-gold mine has revealed it holds more than just high-grade copper, gold and silver.

QMines (ASX:QML) has made a new bonanza lead and zinc discovery in Queensland, with maiden drilling at the Mt Chalmers delivering up to 16.8% zinc and 8.3% lead along with high-grade copper, gold and silver.

The final four holes of the initial 11 hole, 1,587m diamond drilling program delivered top hits like 7.5m at 0.75 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 23g/t silver, 0.24% copper, 3.5% lead and 7.4% zinc from 70.5m including 2.2m at 0.85g/t gold, 41g/t silver, 0.54% copper, 8.3% lead and 16.8% zinc from 72.5m.

Grades of as high as 9.31g/t gold and 5.21% copper were also among the results.

“The current resource model has not factored in zinc and lead so we will now work towards updating the resource model to factor in these results,” chairman Andrew Sparke said.

“The company’s RC drilling program is progressing well with six holes drilled to date. We expect to deliver more results shortly that will lead to a resource update in the near future.”

The first six reverse circulation (RC) holes from the planned 30 hole, 3,000m drilling program at Mt Chalmers have been completed with drilling ongoing.

QMines has 100% ownership of four advanced copper-gold projects in Queensland, spanning 1,096sqkm, which includes the high-grade historic Mt Chalmers copper-gold mine. The company is one of only a handful of ASX-listed copper companies with a brownfield copper asset in a Tier 1 jurisdiction like Australia.

QMines plan is to revive the Mt Chalmers mine, which was mined sporadically between 1898 and 1982, producing 1.24 million tonnes at 2% copper, 3.6g/t gold and 19g/t silver.

No mining has been undertaken since 1982, but there’s still plenty of exploration upside.

Mt Chalmers is located in the same region as significant mines including Heritage Minerals Mount Morgan’s historic mine, which produced over 8 million oz of gold and 400,000 tonnes of copper, Aeris Resources’ (ASX:AIS) Cracow gold mine, which has produced 1.4 million oz of high-margin gold since 2004, and Evolution Mining’s (ASX:EVN) Mt Rawdon mine, which has produced nearly 2 million oz of gold since it started production in 2001.

QMines
Location of the Mt Chalmers copper project, tenure, geology
and related infrastructure.

Mt Chalmers already has a maiden JORC 2012-compliant inferred resource of 3.9 million tonnes at 1.15% copper, 0.81g/t gold and 8.4g/t silver (which combined is 1.87% copper equivalent).

QMines joined the ranks of ASX-listed explorers in early May following an oversubscribed IPO.

The $11.5m raised from the IPO gives the company plenty of cash to expand the resource and assess the development potential of Mt Chalmers.

QMines has mapped out a large drilling program of 30,000m over the next two years.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with QMines, 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.

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