E79 Gold’s maiden Mountain Home sampling program yields outstanding copper and gold results

E79 Gold Mines (ASX: E79) has emerged from a trading halt with the release of outstanding copper and gold values from a maiden sampling mission at its Mountain Home project in the Northern Territory.

The company has received exceptionally high-grade copper assays from selective rock chip sampling, with 7 of the 15 rock chips returning values in excess of 22%.

Chief executive officer Ned Summerhayes said the highly successful reconnaissance program has extended the known mineralised structure to 1 kilometre in strike extent.

Promising discovery

“These outstanding rock chip copper and gold results highlight the very exciting discovery potential of the Mountain Home project,” Mr Summerhayes said.

“Encouragingly, we have now encountered high grades in both copper and gold along the entire length of the known mineralised outcrop, now extended to in excess of 1km strike extent and remaining open to the north and south.”

“The soil sampling results suggest there may be parallel structures given the across-strike width of anomalism in both copper and gold.”

“These results give us confidence to both follow-up with programs to extend the Mountain Home copper system and also follow-up historic positive stream and soil samples elsewhere on the project.”

The company is aiming to undertake these exploration programs within the current September quarter.

Anomalous gold find

Mr Summerhayes noted that the standout rock chips show anomalous gold – which he says is rare in the region – with ten of the 15 rock chips taken returning anomalous gold with a maximum value of 11.75 grams per tonne.

The initial soil sample program collected 36 samples taken on lines oriented perpendicular to the strike of mineralised outcrop.

Sample spacing was 20m on approximately 50m line spacings with the sampling focused on the original 150m-long and up to 4m-wide extent of the system defined by historic rock chip results with the objective to gain an understanding beyond the mineralised outcrop.

The recent reconnaissance results demonstrate an 80m wide, coincident anomalous copper and gold zone, across the strike of the outcrop.

Comprehensive program

E79 is now preparing to undertake a larger-scale comprehensive sampling program.

The mineralised outcrop at Mountain Home sits within the highly prospective McArthur Basin, where E79 Gold now controls a tenement package of 868 sq km.

The district hosts the world-class McArthur River Zinc-Lead Mine, the Teena Zinc-Lead Deposit and numerous other base metal prospects.