Alice Queen has commenced core drilling at its Boda East copper-gold prospect, using a similar strategy that led to Newcrest Mining discovering the Cadia Ridgeway deposit in 1996.
The junior’s first drill hole in this campaign, 22BEDH011, follows up previous drilling which intersected significant zones of anomalous-to-ore-grade copper-gold (20BEDH001).
“This first hole is targeting a zone approximately 200m beneath what may be leakage veins intersected in previously drilled hole 20BEDH001,” Alice Queen said in a recent announcement.
“A second hole is drill ready targeting a zone approximately 200m south of 20BEDH001.”
The Boda East prospect lies within the Yarindury project, which is in the Lachlan Fold Belt in New South Wales. The prospect is located 1–2km east of Alkane Resources’ Boda copper-gold discovery.
Alkane revealed a landmark resource estimate for Boda in May, demonstrating a deposit with 10.1 million ounces of gold equivalent (AuEq).
Alice Queen said 22BEDH011 drilling would take approximately four weeks to complete, with samples to be assayed following that.
“The new drill hole (22BEDH011) will test deeper beneath these 20BEDH001 vein intersections, which could be high level ‘leakage’ veins above a deposit,” Alice Queen chief technical advisor John Holliday said.
“It is noteworthy that deeper drilling beneath such a ‘leakage’ vein led to the discovery of the Cadia Ridgeway deposit by Newcrest Mining in 1996.”
Holliday was in fact one of the geologists that first discovered Cadia Ridgeway.
The Cadia operation is now one of the largest gold projects globally, producing 560,702 ounces of gold in the 2021–22 financial year (FY22). The mine also produced 85,383 tonnes of copper in FY22.