Meteoric Resources confirms ‘exciting geology’ of new prospective zone at Juruena copper-gold project
Meteoric总经理Dr Andrew Tunks说，他对公司钻入Juruena断层带时所观察到的地质情况感到兴奋。
A minor technical hitch has not been enough to dampen the enthusiasm of Meteoric Resources (ASX: MEI) as it drills a new and highly-prospective zone at its Juruena copper-gold project in Brazil.
Activity was temporarily halted this month after the company realised it would need to truck narrower drill rods to site to enable deeper drilling into a magmatic porphyry environment which has previously been responsible for high-grade shallow mineralisation.
The hitch occurred in what has been labelled the “most prospective zone yet encountered” at Juruena, comprising intense hydrothermal alteration with copper and molybdenum sulphides in veins within the Juruena Fault Corridor.
Promising breccia
The second deep drillhole in Meteoric’s program was stopped at 940m within the Juruena Fault in what is believed to be a “very promising” copper sulphide-bearing breccia with infills of the copper-rich minerals chalcopyrite, bornite and chalcocite with minor pyrite.
Similar breccias have been observed at Juruena’s large-tonnage Crentes prospect, which has previously returned economic copper and gold intercepts including 32m at 0.38% copper from 100m; and 54.3m at 0.23% copper and 1.33 grams per tonne gold from 171m.
Meteoric has temporarily moved its rig 500m west-northwest to the third hole in its schedule which has been designed to test a deep IP (induced polarisation) chargeability anomaly where it crosses the Juruena Fault at a target depth of approximately 750m downhole.
Drilling will then move to the footwall where there is a strong soil geochemical anomaly for copper and molybdenum north of the Juruena Fault.
The company will return to the second hole to complete an additional 200m of drilling once the narrow rods arrive onsite next month.
Exciting potential
Managing director Andrew Tunks said despite the minor disruption, the company remained excited about the new zone’s potential.
“While it is very frustrating to have a technical hitch right as we drilled into the best zone yet, we are buoyed by the exciting geology we have observed as we have entered the Juruena Fault zone,” he said.
“The alteration styles and the minerals present all lead to the conclusion that we are in a significant magmatic ore system.”