ASX-listed Infinity Mining continues to shore up its Pilbara operations after securing a five-year exploration licence extension for another of the key tenements that forms part of the company’s Hillside project.
The company is currently undertaking a detailed open-file review and geophysical interpretation over the site with reconnaissance mapping and surface sampling planned for this year’s field season.
The latest licence continuation is the fourth extension Infinity has secured across its Pilbara holdings in the past month and includes tenements at the company’s Panorama, Tambourah South in addition to another Hillside site.
Hillside sits within the Coongan Greenstone Belt between the Shaw Batholith to the west and Corunna Downs Batholith to the east. The explorer believes Hillside also has the potential to host copper-rich volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits similar to the nearby Sulphur Springs and Kangaroo Caves deposits.
Sulphur Springs holds 17.4 million tonnes at 1.3 per cent copper, 4.2 per cent zinc and 17 grams per tonne silver whilst the Kangaroo Caves deposit hosts 3.55 million tonnes at 6 per cent zinc 0.77 per cent copper and 15.2 g/t silver.
Infinity Mining Chief Executive Officer, Joe Groot said: “The five-year extension granted on E45/4709 is a great success for Infinity. Reconnaissance mapping and surface sampling is planned for the 2023 field season.”
Historical exploration at Hillside has been conducted by several companies including Alcoa in 1980 and Great Southern Mining in 1984. Great Southern conducted a rock chip sample program that returned 20 results with more than 1000 ppm copper with one sample reaching 7800 ppm or 7.8 per cent copper. In 2019 FE Limited, as part of a joint venture at the time with Infinity, completed a 36-hole scout program that returned anomalous copper results.
A 2018 helicopter electromagnetic survey identified 18 anomalies the company considered worthy of further exploration. Follow-up rock chip sampling returned several gold results, including 30.25 parts-per-million and 21.89 ppm gold. Another assay from the southern area of the project returned copper results at an impressive 70771 ppm or 7.08 per cent.
Last year Infinity conducted an electromagnetic survey across three of its projects in the Pilbara region including Hillside as the company aims to home in on nickel, copper, gold and zinc anomalies.
The explorer is planning an exploration blitz across its Pilbara operations this year including the launch of a new survey technique at its Tambourah South lithium project that uses real-time data processing to model a 3D map of the underlying geology of the site. The Ambient Noise Tomography survey technology allows the explorer to map in 3D down to several hundred metres where lithium, caesium and tantalum-rich pegmatites identified at surface have grown at depth.
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By Matt Birney
