Legacy Minerals adds Drake copper-gold project to NSW epithermal portfolio
New South Wales explorer Legacy Minerals (ASX: LGM) now has seven projects on the go in the state after acquiring what will be called the Drake copper-gold project in the New England Fold Belt.
It paid White Rock Minerals (ASX: WRM) $200,000 for the project which is unencumbered and has no liabilities.
The EL6273 exploration licence, when added to pegged ground at neighbouring EL6640, will make Drake expand to 350 sq km.
The company says the acquisition now makes it NSW’s largest explorer for low sulphidation epithermal systems.
‘Vastly under-explored’
The ground bought from White Rock hosts multiple known copper and gold occurrences and has seen historic drilling.
The project lies immediately along strike from White Rock’s Pioneer and All Nations copper strikes and gold trend.
Drilling in the past returned 18.65m at 5.8% copper, 0.74% zinc, 0.1 grams per tonne gold, including a 10.1m interval assaying at 7.26% copper, 2.58% zinc and 0.12g/t gold.
The company says that, due to the scale of the mineralised system at Drake, there is potential for a “major” discovery as the exploration licence is vastly under-explored, with historical work focused on the neighbouring mining leases, not at the exploration licence area.
Potential upside ‘immense’
Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Christopher Byrne said the company continues to build a portfolio of projects “with mineral systems of a scale that can potentially host world class deposits”.
“The potential upside [at Drake] is immense,” he added.
The Drake district is one of a number of low-high sulphidation gold, silver and base metals districts that formed along the east coast of Australia during the Permian Age.
These include what is now the Cracow gold mine (2.5 million ounces) and Mt Carlton gold mine (1.2Moz, along with silver and copper).
Apart from Drake, Legacy owns its Cobar project (gold-copper, lead-zinc), Harden with high-grade gold, Bauloora (a joint venture with Newmont), Fontenoy (gold-copper), Rockley in a zone that historically produced copper up to a grade of 23%, and gold-silver at Black Range.