Shares in DiscovEx Resources leapt about 20 per cent on intraday trading after its JV partner, Carnaby Resources, rattled off another striking set of intercepts from rolling work at its Greater Duchess copper gold project near Mt Isa in Queensland.
Carnaby has peppered the site with holes over the past year or so and after success with the drill bit on just about every occasion, it plans to continue its base and precious-metal blitz using a combination of RC and diamond drilling.
At the Lady Fanny prospect, part of the larger Greater Duchess project, the company chalked up a remarkable 13m section running 4.4 per cent copper and 0.2 grams per tonne gold from 122m with a richer 3m hit at 17.1 per cent copper and 0.3g/t gold from the same depth.
Another hole at the prospect intersected a new sub-parallel western lode and delivered a 6m hit grading 3.8 per cent copper and 1.4g/t gold from 88m. The lode is about 50m west of the operation's main lode that was defined in an earlier program.
One of the longer hits from the perforation of Lady Fanny was a 31m strike at 1.1 per cent copper from 78m with a higher-grade 10 inclusion going 1.7 per cent copper from 84m.
The latest results come after a list of impressive hits from a systematic step-out RC and diamond drilling play at the prospect. The company says the broad, rich and very shallow copper and gold mineralisation has now been hit over a 500m strike length at the target and intriguingly the area remains open to the north and at depth.
According to management, several results are still outstanding and with drilling showing no signs of slowing, Lady Fanny could soon deliver another clutch of high-grade copper-gold intercepts.
In other developments, resource extensional drilling at the Nil Desperandum prospect, about 5km away from Lady Fanny, intersected strong copper and gold mineralisation, boosting the overall size of the discovery.
Results include a 19m section at 2.3 per cent copper from 216m with a 5m interval running a hefty 7 per cent copper from a depth of 230m.
Step-out drilling in another hole at the Nil Desperandum struck a 6m-wide vein rich in copper sulphides from about 150m down-hole plunge of an earlier probe.
The prospect has now been intersected over a down-plunge range of about 800m from surface and remains open at depth.
The recent flurry of activity included a suite of work at the Burke & Wills prospect about 400m west of Lady Fanny.
The prospect is typified by a sequence of shallow workings on its northern lode and has so far seen little drilling apart from Carnaby’s first drill hole at the prospect last year.
Following the initial bore, a total of seven holes have been plunged at Burke & Wills and remarkably each one has intersected a contiguous east-dipping lode that stretched over 200m in strike length and is in all directions.
The company says a new result from the deepest hole sunk at the prospect has delivered a 5m strike running 3.9 per cent copper and 0.4g/t gold from 60m, with a richer 2m interval grading an illuminating 9 per cent copper and 0.8g/t gold from 63m.
Carnaby is now gearing up to sink more holes at the Burke & Wills prospect and potentially extend the mineralisation.
Perth-based DiscovEx made the move to divest just over 80 per cent of its interest in its Southern Hub exploration tenements that host the Nil Desperandum and Burke & Wills prospects to Carnaby about two years ago under a free carried interest deal.
The decision appears to be a shrewd play, with Carnaby notching a series of solid results in recent times, allowing DiscovEx to vector in on the discovery of large-scale gold deposits across Western Australia.
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By Matt Birney
