Lightning Minerals (ASX:L1M) has completed its four-hole phase-two diamond drilling program at the Mt Turner Gold Project in North Queensland, with assay results expected in December.
The company completed 518.4m of diamond drilling at the wholly owned project. The holes tested strike and depth extensions of ‘high-grade’ gold mineralisation intersected in 2025 along an initial 2.2km section of the 14km Drummer Fault corridor.
Core logging and sampling are complete, with samples submitted to the laboratory. The company will release results once received and validated.
The program targeted gold mineralisation associated with rhyolite and fault breccia, localised around splays and fault intersections along the Drummer Fault.
Mt Turner is located in Queensland’s Etheridge Goldfield and centres on a copper-molybdenum porphyry system. The company is focusing its exploration on gold mineralisation in peripheral structures, including the Western Zone and Red Hills Breccia targets.
Managing Director Troy Brice says the 2025 campaign validated the Drummer Fault geological model, prompting the company to test the broader scale of the host structures.
“We believe the potential gold mineralisation at Mt Turner remains materially underexplored relative to the scale of the host structures, with large sections of the 14km corridor still untested,” Brice explains.
The company plans to integrate the results into its geological model and design follow-up drilling along strike and at depth.
The program provides a framework for phase-three resource definition drilling in 2027, which aims to support a maiden gold mineral resource estimate.
Lightning Minerals is an Australian explorer focused on gold and critical minerals, with a portfolio of projects across Queensland and Western Australia.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Lightning Minerals
