The ducks are in a row for Cooper Metals Ltd (ASX:CPM) to ground-truth 10 high-priority targets now that it has wrapped up a VTEM survey over the Barbara East tenement at the Mt Isa East Project in northwest Queensland.
The VTEM survey, a key part of the company’s strategy to screen the area for new copper-gold targets, was completed in May and covered 200 square kilometres and 725-line kilometres.
Government-backed survey
Significantly, the tenement covers part of the Mary Kathleen Domain, a highly prospective structural domain for copper-gold deposits. The deposit is just 1.8 kilometres west of EPM28087, which registered a VTEM response.
The survey was partly funded by a Queensland Government Collaborative Exploration Initiative (CEI) grant for $137,5001.
Managing director Ian Warland said: “The VTEM survey over EPM28087 has identified 10 promising anomalies located in favourable lithologies and structural positions.
“This is potentially very significant because the nearby Barbara deposit is thought to have a VTEM signature, demonstrating the usefulness of this method in identifying sulphide-rich copper mineralisation.
“Next steps include ground truthing the promising anomalies in order to assess them for drill testing.
“I look forward to updating the market with our exploration progress over the coming weeks.”
Desktop modelling of VTEM data by a consultant geophysicist has armed the company with a suite of ten high-priority anomalies, based on the strength of their conductive response.
The desktop modelling aims to select the most promising anomalies for ground truthing. The heliborne detailed survey was completed on 300-metre line spacing in an east-west orientation. The survey was designed to identify any bedrock conductors that may represent copper sulphide mineralisation.
Ground truthing next
Ground truthing will begin shortly to further rank targets for follow-up geochemistry and/or ground geophysics ahead of potential drill testing.
Anomalies that show higher conductivity are ranked the highest.
Cooper geologists then further prioritised the anomalies using additional criteria including:
- the presence of favourable host lithologies such as Corella and Argylla formations;
- proximity to mapped faults, lithology contacts and mafic rocks;
- evidence of historical geochemistry anomalies; and
- absence of possible conductors such as black shales, graphite and cultural features, for example, metal cattle yards.
Other geological factors such as the presence of black shale, pyrrhotite and graphitic rocks can produce VTEM anomalies.
In other news, reverse circulation (RC) drilling continues at Ardmore South at induced polarisation (IP) and geochemical targets and should be completed within the next couple of weeks.
The first batch of 500, one-metre RC samples has been sent to the laboratory in Mt Isa for analysis. Assay results are expected in late June.
With the addition of these recent 10 VTEM anomalies, Cooper has now built a pipeline of more than 40 early-stage targets at the project with potential for copper and/or gold mineralisation, which the company continues to rank for further exploration work.