Big Hits: Far Northern strikes NT bonanza, AusQuest and Terra Metals

Junior explorers have put on a clinic in how to deliver both sheer grade and massive vertical scale this week, proving that standout drill results can come from everything from a happy geotechnical outcome to deep, multi-horizon sulphide systems. From shallow bonanza gold grades in the Top End and towering porphyry copper columns in southern Peru, through to stacked platinum group metal reefs in WA’s remote West Musgrave, their drill bits have been working overtime across the globe. So let’s dive in.

FAR NORTHERN RESOURCES LIMITED (ASX: FNR)

Project: Bridge Creek gold project, Northern Territory
Hit: 4m at 110.06g/t gold from 16m downhole

Drilling a hole purely for metallurgical and geotechnical testing, only to stumble onto a blistering, shallow bonanza gold zone, is the kind of serendipity every junior explorer dreams about. Far Northern Resources has pulled off that exact coup with one of six diamond drill holes put into its Bridge Creek project, 125 kilometres south-southeast of Darwin in the Northern Territory.

Targeting the northwestern margin of its Bridge Creek Central deposit, where previous drilling had been sparse, the company’s headline hole bored into a high-grade shoot just 16 metres below surface. The intercept returned a remarkable 4-metre length of core grading 110.06 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, underpinned by an eye-watering single-metre chunk assaying 425.2g/t gold from 16m. That’s “thirteen-and-a-half-ounce dirt” in the old prospectors’ language.

Immediately above that bonanza zone, the same hole tagged 2m at 14.14g/t gold from 11m, before hitting further mineralised runs of 2m at 1.14g/t gold from 30m and 3m at 3.05g/t gold from 36m.

Clocking in at a 440 gram-metre comparative index, the company says that primary intercept is the best one drilled at Bridge Creek to date. And while ground conditions forced the hole to be abandoned at 68.9m, it still gave a last hurrah with 0.9m at 0.83g/t gold from 68m.

While the northwestern margin delivered the high-grade fireworks, a second diamond hole pierced straight through the heart of the central deposit to highlight its bulk scale, returning a whopping 60-metre intercept grading 2.0g/t gold from 53m, marking the longest continuous mineralised interval ever drilled at Bridge Creek.

Not only did it break the intercept-length record, its broad run was also laced with multiple internal zones, including 7m at 4.13g/t gold from 53m and 28m at 2.10g/t gold from 69m, featuring several single-metre spikes up to 16.41g/t gold.

Situated along the tightly folded axis of the Howley Anticline, roughly 12km north of the historic Cosmopolitan Howley gold mine, the mineralisation sits within quartz-sulphide stockwork zones hosted by black shales and altered dolerites.

The latest assays from the six-hole, 584.3-metre diamond campaign will feed straight into a resource upgrade slated for early 2027. Bridge Creek currently hosts 93,000 ounces of gold, forming the backbone of the company’s 117,000-ounce Northern Territory resource base, alongside its nearby Ios project.

With the bonanza shoot remaining wide open to the northwest, along strike and down-dip, Far Northern is gearing up for repeat and screen fire assaying on the high-grade core while also planning immediate follow-up drilling ahead of a scoping study later next year.

Diamond drill core from AusQuest Limited’s headline hole at the Cangallo project in Peru showing vibrant blue-green oxide chrysocolla and malachite copper mineralisation between 156m and 164m downhole. Credit: File

AUSQUEST LIMITED (ASX: AQD)

Project: Cangallo porphyry copper-gold project, Peru
Hit: 618m at 0.26% copper and 0.06g/t gold from 36m downhole

Proving up sheer vertical scale across an emerging porphyry system is the name of the game in South America, and AusQuest Limited has delivered in spades after tagging more than 600 metres of continuous copper-gold mineralisation at its Cangallo project in southern Peru.

Positioned 25 kilometres east of the coastal town of Chala, the company’s latest diamond drilling campaign set out to test the depth extent of stockwork veining in the northern sector of the company’s wholly owned prospect.

The headline diamond hole stole the show, boring through copper mineralisation from just 36 metres downhole to return a massive 618m run grading 0.26 per cent copper and 0.06g/t gold.

That broad envelope was bolstered by several punchier internal intervals, led by a shallow 114-metre zone assaying 0.40 per cent copper and 0.07g/t gold from 88m, alongside deeper hits of 26m at 0.41 per cent copper from 254m and 30m at 0.41 per cent copper from 438m.

A second diamond hole backed up the scale narrative by intersecting an even longer 708-metre zone grading 0.21 per cent copper and 0.05g/t gold from just 4m below surface. It also featured a higher-grade shallow core of 40m going 0.40 per cent copper and 0.11g/t gold from 28m.

Other sweeteners in the second hole included 14m assaying 0.35 per cent copper and 0.08g/t gold from 280m; 20m going 0.35 per cent copper and 0.08g/t gold from 438m and 14m running at 0.33 per cent copper and 0.08g/t gold from 538m depth.

According to management, the two holes represent the longest copper intercepts reported at Cangallo to date.

The most significant copper intercepts across all six holes were accompanied by gold responses up to 0.14g/t, silver to 1.6g/t and molybdenum to 120 parts per million.

Interestingly, the system showcases two distinct styles of copper mineralisation. The first is a shallow supergene oxide blanket extending to almost 250m depth, carrying typical secondary-zone chrysocolla and malachite copper mineralisation.

That shallow zone transitions into deeper primary zone stockwork veins loaded with the distinctive copper-iron- sulphide minerals chalcopyrite and bornite, both of which are key ore minerals for copper.

Geological mapping indicates the multi-phase intrusive system spans at least 1.5km of strike, with associated dykes stretching beyond 2.5km and remaining wide open.

Notably, momentum is also building for the company on the regulatory front, with the Peruvian Government recently declaring Cangallo a project of national interest - a development the company expects will streamline future permitting.

With environmental and community approvals already locked in for 20 new drill pads, AusQuest is preparing to mobilise rigs for a stage four reverse circulation program later in the year to test strong surface copper and gold anomalies in the south.

TERRA METALS LIMITED (ASX: TM1)
Project: Dante project, Southwest prospect, Western Australia

Hit: 67m at 2.07g/t 3E and 0.13% nickel from 332m downhole

Threading a single diamond hole through four stacked mineralised zones while banking project-record platinum group metal grades is a serious statement of intent. Terra Metals has just pulled off that feat at its Southwest discovery in Western Australia’s remote West Musgrave region, where deep drilling continues to unlock a sprawling magmatic sulphide system.

Within the company’s wholly owned, 3000-square-kilometre Dante project, the headline diamond hole was designed to test the central block of the Southwest prospect at depth.

The hole delivered a standout run of 67m grading 2.07g/t platinum, palladium and gold and 0.13 per cent nickel from 332m downhole. That broad envelope encased an intensely mineralised 31.9-metre zone averaging 3.96g/t platinum, palladium and gold, 0.23 per cent nickel and 0.12 per cent copper from 366m.

Boring deeper into the structural reef system revealed even hotter internal spikes, including 8.9m at 11.85g/t platinum, palladium and gold and 0.54 per cent nickel from 389m, including 0.9m assaying 15.86g/t platinum, palladium and gold, 1.84% nickel, 0.13 per cent cobalt and 0.18 per cent copper from 390.4m.

That same 31.9m zone also included 4.7m going 17.90g/t platinum, palladium and gold, 0.36 per cent nickel, 0.19 per cent copper from 393.15m. In a resounding crescendo at 396.8m depth, the drill core delivered a blistering, project record bonanza zone of 1.1m assaying 72.71g/t platinum, palladium and gold - or 2.34 ounces to the tonne - with 0.33 per cent copper and 0.27 per cent nickel.

Not to be suppressed too early after that previous headline act, the same hole also intersected three additional mineralised horizons across an eye-watering 452m of drilling, proving that the stacked, near-surface architecture noted in the east plunges cleanly through the central corridor.

Above the main zone, the drill bit chewed through a 97.8-metre zone going 1.18g/t platinum, palladium and gold, 0.13 per cent copper and 0.17 per cent nickel from 225.2m, while a deeper slice hit 21m at 1.02g/t platinum, palladium and gold from 520m, including 0.93m at 8.92g/t platinum, palladium and gold and 2.02 per cent nickel.

Geologically, the Southwest prospect sits within the Giles Intrusive Complex,  with local faulting helping to concentrate high-grade massive and semi-massive sulphides. It lies in the same layered mafic-ultramafic belt that hosts BHP’s massive Nebo-Babel deposit, a magmatic nickel-copper-PGE sulphide system, containing a massive combined 390 million tonne resource grading 0.30 per cent nickel and 0.33 per cent copper.

With four drills still at work and more than 35,000m of drill samples from Southwest sitting in the laboratory pipeline, Terra is backed by a hefty $57.9 million cash war chest. Its metallurgical results are due this quarter, ahead of a maiden resource estimate for Southwest early next year and a scoping study slated for mid-year towards a potential prefeasibility study.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au