Gold and copper results from regional rock chip sampling have DeSoto keen to get a better sense of what the Copperfield 4 target area holds. Pic: via Getty Images
Mining
DeSoto has upgraded the regional prospectivity of its Pine Creek tenements in the Northern Territory after rock chip sampling returned copper-gold results that extended the strike of the Copperfield 4 area.
This late 2022 listing is chaired by exploration veteran Paul Roberts, the man who turned $3m capped gold minnow Predictive Discovery (ASX:PDI) into a $300m, 4.2Moz project developer.
DeSoto Resources’ (ASX:DES) main game is the Pine Creek tenements in the NT, which the company believes could host another large mineral discovery.
US miner Homestake had previously carried out exploration at Pine Creek’s Fenton project due to its resemblance to the host rocks and structure found at the +40Moz Lead gold deposit in South Dakota.
Homestake’s drilling returned hits like 55m at 0.89g/t gold from 418m including 20m at 1.74 g/t gold from 423m (FEND18) and 17m at 0.71g/t gold from 610m (FEND14).
Drilling is now underway at Fenton. An initial 3000m is planned across targets in the central discovery zone of the Fenton Shear Zone (FSZ), a structurally complex gold target that extends for over 55km and is comparable in scale to the nearby 17Moz Pine Creek Shear Zone.
Meanwhile, recent regional sampling campaign targeting gold, copper and lithium across the Pine Creek project continues to return multiple +1 gram per tonne (g/t) gold results.
Highlights like 7.4g/t gold and up to 2.12% copper served to extend the Copperfield 4 target by more than 200m.
Earlier sampling, which was itself carried out to confirm historical rock chips of up to 3.54g/t gold and 15.2% copper, had returned maximum values of up to 4.1g/t gold and 6.5% copper.
Notably for DeSoto, this previous program extended the Copperfield area of known mineralisation by 860m north-northwest of the historical rock chips.
For the company’s most recent sampling program to build on this previous advance is encouraging, certainly enough that it plans to carry out follow-up mapping to define target structures.
Nor was it the only success that it enjoyed, with sampling at the Copperfield 5 area returning up to 2.1% copper from gossanous quartz rich sandstones with malachite and chalcopyrite adjacent to workings.
“While our main game is the Fenton drilling, regional work completed across the southeastern extent of our licences continues to uncover and grow our gold potential,” managing director Chris Swallow told Stockhead.
“This perhaps should be expected, the Pine Creek Region has seen over 17Moz of gold found over the past 100 years, so it’s easy to see why this is such a rich area for gold discovery.
“Meanwhile, our Fenton Project is just getting interesting. The main shear zone which we modelled during our geophysical program is about to be intersected by our drilling and we look forward to getting a look at the core and seeing the assays shortly thereafter.”
Besides the ongoing drilling at Fenton, the company is also awaiting results from rock chip sampling at the Barrapool prospect, where historical gold pan concentrate stream results of up to 257g/t gold were reported.
Additionally, the company expects to complete a 835km helicopter-borne electromagnetic, magnetic and DTM survey over a large section of the 20km long Fenton Shear Zone in early October.
This survey is co-funded up to $96,283 under Round 16 of the Northern Territory Government’s Geophysics and Drilling Collaborations program.
This article was developed in collaboration with DeSoto Resources, 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.
