Native Mineral Resources has upped the ante at its Palmerville project in north Queensland. A recently completed sampling program has delivered two new bumper grade copper samples going as high as 19.99 per cent copper at the Glenroy prospect and 7.99 per cent copper at the Fairlight prospect. Extensive follow-up exploration is now planned for the next quarter.
With the wet season coming to an end in northern Australia, Native Mineral Resources looks to have its hands full at Palmerville in the upcoming field season.
Located around 200km north of Cairns, the Palmerville project hosts the mineralised Chillagoe Formation within the 1,800 square kilometre tenure. Some 130km of strike is reported by the company.
The Chillagoe Formation is already renowned for its base metals and gold potential, boasting numerous deposits including the Red Dome and Mungana porphyry and skarn associated gold-copper deposits to the south of Palmerville.
The company says Palmerville has been comparatively under-explored and it has identified 65 occurrences of mineralisation with 11 initial priority targets at the project, including the promising Leane’s copper prospect located in the central part of the landholdings.
The recently completed sampling program appears to add further lustre to the potential for new copper discoveries to be made at Palmerville with two new bumper-grade prospects in the northern sections of the tenure identified by the company.
At Glenroy, the sampling program was designed to test the northern extensions of the same magnetic anomaly that hosts Leane’s. Six samples were collected to test the grade with all six samples returned anomalous mineralisation ranging between 0.96 per cent copper up to the head-turning 19.99 per cent copper and 32 grams per tonne silver.
The results add weight to the limited historical exploration works at the prospect that returned anomalous copper from 7 rock chip samples going as high as 5.26 per cent copper. Two air core holes were also drilled in the 1970s with one returning up to 1,550 parts per million copper, whilst limited auger drilling to a very shallow 4 metres depth returned copper values up to 1000 parts per million copper.
Also to the north of Leane’s, 11 samples were collected at Fairlight as part of a first-pass investigation of several historical copper operations in the area. Six samples returned high-grade copper over 2 per cent in grade, including one sample going 7.99 per cent copper and 9 g/t silver. The sampling at Fairlight has helped to extend the zone of known copper to the south by around 2km from the historical mining operations.
Leane’s lies in the central part of the tenement package and is identified as the company’s priority copper target at Palmerville. Since the discovery in 2007 by previous explorers, anomalous copper mineralisation has been identified over some 1,200m of strike with subsequent but limited drilling in 2010 returning solid hits including 28m going 0.55 per cent copper, 4m at 0.55 per cent copper and 11m at 0.32 per cent copper.
As part of the sampling program, 9 samples of different rock types were collected at Leane’s with three of the samples returning solid grades of 2.49 per cent copper, 2.85 per cent copper and an eye-catching 10.06 per cent copper with 7.8 g/t silver.
One sample from an outcrop at the Palmer River prospect to the north of Leane’s showed 1.61 per cent copper, providing yet another prospect for the company to mull in its list of priorities.
The 2021 field season at Palmerville may just end up being transformational for the up-and-coming explorer with the start of a follow-up campaign set for next quarter.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
