Miramar Resources (ASX:M2R) reports that aircore drilling has started at the company’s 100% owned Whaleshark Copper-Gold Project, about 40km east of Onslow in the Ashburton region of Western Australia.
The drilling program will use a track-mounted aircore rig to minimise environmental disturbance and is expected to take about 4 weeks to complete.
In 2021, Miramar completed two phases of mobile metal ion (MMI) soil sampling over the project and outlined two large Cu-U-REE-Mo-W anomalies on the eastern edge of the granite intrusion.
Miramar reports the current aircore drilling program will test for geochemical anomalism beneath the MMI anomalies and the pressure shadow target at the unconformity between the Proterozoic basement rocks and the overlying Cretaceous sediments.
The Whaleshark Project is characterised by a ‘large’, folded banded iron formation (BIF) complex, intruded by a granite, under about 100m of Carnarvon Basin sediments.
The local geology is interpreted to be Ashburton Formation, part of the Capricorn Orogen, a belt of Proterozoic-aged rocks between the Archean Pilbara and Yilgarn Cratons.
Previous workers intersected gold mineralisation in the BIF and outlined a low-level surface gold anomaly in an interpreted “pressure shadow” target at the southwest end of the granite.
“At Whaleshark, we have very large surface geochemical anomalies above a Proterozoic granitoid intrusion at relatively shallow depths”
Commenting on the drilling program, Miramar Executive Chairman Allan Kelly said: “At Whaleshark, we have very large surface geochemical anomalies above a Proterozoic granitoid intrusion at relatively shallow depths when compared with other IOCG prospects.
The large Ernest Henry IOCG deposit in northern Queensland has a well-developed geochemical anomaly at the unconformity between the cover sediments and the basement rocks.
If we can outline a similar anomaly with this aircore drilling, and reduce the size of the targets, it will greatly assist in refining potential basement targets for deeper RC and/or diamond drilling.”
The Whaleshark project is located 40km east of Onslow, WA, and is characterised by a large, folded BIF complex intruded by a granite and buried under approximately 100m of Carnarvon Basin sediments.
The project is located at the north-western end of the Proterozoic Capricorn Orogen and has potential for IOCG and Proterozoic BIF-hosted gold mineralisation.
