Alice Queen has revealed encouraging findings from its first drill hole of a core drilling campaign at the Boda East project in the Lachlan Fold Belt, New South Wales.
Diamond drill hole 22BEDH011 has visually confirmed the continuity of mineralisation beneath the previously drilled 20BEDH001, with three zones of pyrite-chalcopyrite mineralisation intersected at 22BEDH011.
“Hole 22BEDH011 has shown that the mineralisation previously identified in 20BEDH001 continues along strike to the south and at depth within the same strongly altered mafic volcanic rock package,” Alice Queen chief technical advisor John Holliday said.
Unexpected quartz-pyrite-chalcopyrite veins associated with porphyritic dykes were intersected in the most eastern position recorded to date, from 26–49m. Alice Queen estimated 0.05 per cent visible chalcopyrite and 0.5 per cent visible pyrite over this interval.
From 65–71m, the company observed coarse-grained chalcopyrite and minor coarse-grained bornite, while coarse-grained and disseminated chalcopyrite and pyrite was observed over 736–745m. The hole was 780m deep.
The Boda East prospect is located 1–2km east of Alkane Resources’ Boda copper-gold discovery, which boasts a resource of 10.1 million ounces gold equivalent (AuEq).
When Alice Queen began drilling its 22BEDH011 drill hole, Holliday said there could be the presence of high level “leakage” veins.
“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,” he said.
Holliday was in fact one of the geologists that first discovered Cadia Ridgeway.
The Cadia operation is now one of the largest gold projects in the world, producing 560,702 ounces of gold in the 2021–22 financial year (FY22). The mine also produced 85,383 tonnes of copper in FY22.
Samples from 22BEDH011 have been submitted for analysis and Alice Queen plans to commence surface mapping and sampling over Boda East in early November.
Alice Queen anticipates that this work could delineate the further near-surface mineralisation detected in 22BEDH011 for follow-up drill testing.