Barkley Project, Northern Territory (TMS 100%)
The current focus of the Company is the Barkly Project, located approximately 45km east of the town of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, and comprising two granted Exploration Licences, being EL 28620 (Barkly Project) and EL 30701 (Babbler Project).
The Barkly Project is highly prospective for high-grade copper-gold deposits, being located on the eastern edge of the richly-endowed Tennant Creek Mineral Field, which has produced over 5.5Moz of gold and over 700kt of copper from 1934 to 2005 (see Figure 1 below).
Figure 1: Location of the Barkly Project and historical mines in the Tennant Creek Mineral Field
BLUEBIRD PROSPECT
The Barkly Project includes the Company’s greenfields Bluebird high-grade copper gold discovery. Bluebird is one of multiple copper-gold targets within a 5km gravity-defined corridor within the Company’s 100% owned Barkly Project (see Figure 2 below).
The mineralisation intersected at Bluebird is typical of the major high-grade copper-gold orebodies previously mined in the Tennant Creek Mineral Field. The high-grade mineralisation is associated with intense hematite alteration and brecciation with malachite (copper-carbonate), native copper and visible free-gold in the upper parts, which transitions to primary sulphide mineralisation at depth including chalcocite, bornite and zones of massive chalcopyrite.
Drilling to date at Bluebird has identified copper-gold mineralisation over an 800m strike length and now to over 400m depth. The mineralisation is associated with intense hematite alteration and brecciation with malachite, native copper and visible gold in the upper parts of the zone, which transitions to primary sulphide mineralisation including chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite.
The Company has adopted a dual strategic approach of defining the Mineral Resource potential of the Bluebird discovery whilst also testing other key targets in the 5km Bluebird gravity corridor (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Barkly Project, 5km Bluebird gravity corridor and key copper-gold target zones
The recent Stage 3 drilling program at bluebird has tested three key target zones across a 1.5km expanded footprint at Bluebird, based on re-processing and modelling of gravity and magnetics data (see Figure 3 below):
Figure 3: Bluebird plan projection showing 3D gravity model and current and planned drilling
Key targets tested during Stage 3 include the shallow eastern extensions of the copper-gold mineralisation at Bluebird Eastern Extension Zone; a new drill section in the Western High-Grade Gold-Copper Zone on the western side of Bluebird and the initial discovery holes in the Bluebird East Target (see targets and drilling locations on gravity inversion in plan view, Figure 3, and longitudinal view, Figure 4).
Figure 4: Bluebird longitudinal projection showing key copper-gold intersections and targets
Further drilling is now required to define the Bluebird East mineralisation and test for continuity with the main Bluebird discovery. The intersection of deep copper mineralisation at Bluebird East also opens up the potential for deeper extensions of the Bluebird discovery to the west, down plunge, and associated with extensions to the Bluebird gravity corridor and coincident magnetic and Induced Polarisation (IP) resistivity anomalies at Bluebird West (see targets outlined on Figures 3 and 4).
The key objectives of the further drilling are to extend the Bluebird discovery and define high-grade copper-gold mineralisation from near surface to over 400m depth and over a strike-length of more than 800m (see Figure 4).
This would enable the Company to establish a maiden Mineral Resource estimate at Bluebird and, with the benefit of new metallurgical information, enable commencement of development studies and permitting for a new high-grade copper-gold project at a critical time of growing demand for copper (and gold) globally.