True North Copper has announced the discovery of a large-scale, high-grade copper–cobalt–silver system at the Aquila prospect, within its Mount Oxide project.
Aquila is one of six previously undrilled prospects the company is testing through a reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign of up to 8000m, which commenced in May.
It was a game-changing day for True North managing director Bevan Jones said.
“We’ve made a major new copper-cobalt-silver discovery at the Aquila prospect … seeing a 150m wide, continuous mineral system with high-grade cores and strong geochemical signatures, starting from shallow depths.
“And critically, it’s open along strike and at depth, meaning there’s huge potential for us to grow this significantly. Along with copper, we are also seeing significant cobalt grades at Aquila, which has the potential to add value.
The company believed Aquila had the genuine potential to evolve into a major new resource, completely transforming the Mount Oxide project, Mr Jones said.
“What makes this even more exciting is that Aquila sits over 4km north-east of our existing Vero resource with a big fairway in between.
“This strongly suggests we’ve found a much larger, previously undiscovered deposit within the broader Mount Oxide system.”
“We’re well-funded, and our team is already mobilising to expand geophysical coverage and drilling to test how far this system extends,” he said. “With further assay results coming in soon and more ground to cover, this is just the beginning.”
True North plans to scale up exploration at Aquila. This will include extending induced polarisation (IP) surveys along about 3km of strike to the north and south of the current discovery zone.
It plans to acquire high-resolution drone magnetics to help refine the structural understanding/controls across the broader Mount Gordon Fault Zone/Dorman Fault.
Field teams will conduct mapping and sampling across prospective IP anomalies and breccia zones.
True North will carry out designs for follow-up drillholes and permitting.
The company’s key projects are the Mount Oxide project, 140km north of Mount Isa, and the Cloncurry Copper Project (CCP) at Cloncurry.
Drilling highlights from Aquila include:
- MOX233: Upper zone of 30m at 2.45 per cent copper, 0.02 per cent cobalt, 6.2 g/t silver from 20m including high-grade sub-zones 10m at 5.31 per cent copper, 0.02 per cent cobalt, 12.0 g/t silver from 31m and 2m at 5.16 per cent copper, 0.01 per cent cobalt, 11.8 g/t silver from 25m.
- MOX233: Lower zone of 98m at 0.61 per cent copper, 0.06 per cent cobalt, 2.0 g/t silver from 57m, including high-grade sub-zones of 4m at 1.62 per cent copper, 0.20 per cent cobalt, 3.9 g/t silver from 119m and 4m at 1.50 per cent copper, 0.06 per cent cobalt, 3.2 g/t silver from 146m and 3m at 1.43 per cent copper, 0.04 per cent cobalt, 3.8 g/t silver from 69m.
- MOX232: 145m at 0.75 per cent copper, 0.12 per cent cobalt and 2.9 g/t silver from 28m, including 53m at 1.18 per cent copper, 0.13 per cent cobalt, 3.6 g/t silver from 86m, including 5m at 4.30 per cent copper, 0.52 per cent cobalt, 15.9 g/t silver from 124m and 2m at 4.01 per cent copper, 0.14 per cent cobalt, 5.6 g/t silver from 114m, and 1m at 5.17 per cent copper, 0.42 per cent cobalt, 5.2 g/t silver from 142m.
- MOX231: 34m at 0.71 per cent copper, 0.05 per cent cobalt, 2.5 g/t silver from 146m, including internal higher-grade zones of 16m at 1.25 per cent copper, 0.01 per cent cobalt, 1.9 g/t silver from 163m and including 1m at 4.68 per cent copper, 0.01 per cent cobalt, 6.2 g/t silver from 164m.