Miramar Resources Ltd (ASX:M2R) believes it is a step closer to discovering Australia’s first iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposit following a drilling campaign and multi-element assaying at the Whaleshark Project in the Ashburton region of Western Australia.
The company has been narrowing down promising magnetic signatures with groundwork, geophysics and most recently a targeted drilling program which returned anomalous pathfinder results up to 0.2% copper and 0.11 g/t gold.
Two of three holes drilled also revealed fine-grained copper sulphides, with handheld x-ray fluorescence (XRF) readings returning up to 1.2% copper in the second hole.
While drilling did not intersect geology that would explain the gravity anomaly M2R is investigating, the company remains confident it will uncover a potentially major IOCG deposit at Whaleshark.
Targeting the right area
“Since commencing exploration at Whaleshark, we have narrowed the target down from a very large MMI (mobile metal ions) surface geochemical anomaly, outlined aircore copper, gold and silver anomalism and intersected bedrock copper sulphide mineralisation in the first diamond drilling program,” Miramar Resources executive chair Allan Kelly said.
“Given the positive indicators seen at Whaleshark so far, including copper mineralisation and anomalous IOCG pathfinders within the Whaleshark granodiorite, we believe we are in the right area.
“Whaleshark is an exciting project with potential to discover Western Australia’s first IOCG deposit. We are looking for a large deposit here, and there is plenty of room to find one.
“Each phase of our exploration is helping bring us closer to that potential discovery.”
Looking forward, M2R intends to continue exploration at Whaleshark, including:
- completion of a heritage survey over proposed diamond and aircore drill targets;
- diamond drilling of the magnetic anomaly at the northwestern end of the NW-trending fault;
- completion of interface aircore drilling over the MMI anomalies identified to date; and
- investigation of suitable surface geophysical methods to help target further drilling.