Impact Minerals hits thick copper-gold zone at Hopetoun project
As Lithium Australia advances its battery recycling technologies, the company continues progressing its exploration projects.
Drilling of a significant copper-gold target at Impact Minerals’ (ASX: IPT) Hopetoun project south of Ravensthorpe in Western Australia has intersected a thick alteration zone with abundant pyrite sulphide over 4 metres at the end of a drill hole.
The zone of extensive potassic alteration with variable low level copper is believed to be at least 75m thick and occurs within a 4m zone of pyrite at the very end of a reverse circulation drill hole.
The alteration (K-feldspar and biotite), copper values (up to 250 parts per million as measured with a hand-held portable x-ray fluorescence instrument) and sulphide intensity all increase down hole, are open at depth and along trend, and suggest that the drill may have stopped at the edge of a large mineralised system.
Difficult conditions
The drill hole failed to reach its target depth of at least 150m below surface due to unexpected difficult conditions caused by running sands which blocked the drill rods in younger cover rocks that overlie the target Proterozoic basement rocks.
The hole was the fourth attempt to reach the target depth and Impact decided it would be unsafe and potentially very expensive to continue the program.
All drill holes have now been sampled and sent for assay, with results expected early in the new year.
Impact is in the process of securing a diamond drill rig to conduct follow-up drilling.
Drill-ready targets
The Hopetoun project is one of four joint venture projects announced this month where Impact is earning an 80% interest.
The project contains five drill-ready targets, of which two are fully-permitted for drill testing.
Geological information gained from initial drilling has indicated similar conditions are likely to be present above at least four targets, and further validates the need for a diamond rig to complete exploration.
Doonia drilling
The reverse circulation rig will now mobilise to Impact’s Doonia gold project, located 75km east of the world-class St Ives gold camp near Kambalda.
Drilling is expected to start in mid-January.
Doonia was identified during a review of the eastern goldfields for intrusion-hosted gold deposits in light of De Grey Mining’s (ASX: DEG) Hemi discovery in the Pilbara.
The project has been further enhanced by the recent discovery of significant gold-copper-magnetite mineralisation hosted by a magnetic porphyry intrusion at Lefroy Exploration’s (ASX: LEX) Burns project, located 20km west of Doonia.