Carnaby Resources (ASX: CNB) has reported high-grade breccia results from drilling at the Trek 1 prospect within its Greater Duchess copper-gold project in Queensland.
Assays from four wedge drill holes at the Trek 1 extension discovery showed strong continuity of the steeply-plunging breccia shoot with a standout assay of 8.1 metres at 9.9% copper equivalent (CuEq) including 4.3m at 16.5% from 475m.
Sitting approximately 75m down-plunge from a previous result of 7m at 9.3% CuEq, it highlights continuity of the shoot outside of the existing mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 1.5 million tonnes at 2% CuEq for 30,000 tonnes CuEq.
A high-grade lateral extension to the north intersected 4.2m at 8.7% CuEq from 475m, alongside other best assays of 8m at 4.9% CuEq including 3m at 12.8% and 8.7m at 1.1% CuEq including 0.6m at 14.1%.
Extended Breccia Shoot
All drill holes intersected the high-grade breccia zone dominated by matrix infill chalcopyrite copper mineralisation with minor amounts of pyrite gangue.
The Trek 1 breccia shoot has now been defined over a 600m down-plunge length below the ore reserve open pit and a lateral strike of approximately 100m.
From there, the breccia-style mineralisation thins out to the north and south away from the central core.
Mineralisation on the breccia shoot has been extended over 400m down-plunge and Carnaby expects it to form a material addition to the Greater Duchess resource.
Project Scoping Study
Further drilling is planned at Trek 1 prior to an MRE update which will incorporate a 400m extension of the main high-grade breccia shoot and new footwall lode discoveries.
It will be followed by a scoping study to consider first-pass economic assessments of the Trek 1 deposit and how the updated MRE may contribute to the 12-year life-of-mine production target of 9.3Mt of ore at 1.9% CuEq (1.7% copper and 0.3g/t gold) recovering approximately 15,000t CuEq per year.
Carnaby managing director Rob Watkins said the Trek 1 extension was shaping up to be a “very significant high-grade discovery” which could add valuable mineral inventory to the Greater Duchess mineral resource.
Encompassing 1,946 square kilometres of prospective iron oxide copper-gold tenure, Greater Duchess is located approximately 70km southeast of Mount Isa, and centred around the historical Duchess copper mining district.
