Prodigy Gold (ASX:PRX) has completed a collaborative research program with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), advancing understanding of its Hyperion Gold Deposit in the Northern Territory.
Undertaken through the CSIRO Kick-Start Program, the study is the first integrated structural, mineralogical, and geochemical investigation of Hyperion. Prodigy Gold and CSIRO jointly funded the study, with the CSIRO team visiting the site to review, log, and sample diamond core from the company’s 2025 field campaign.
Managing Director Mark Edwards says the study will inform deeper drilling.
“The results of the recently released Scoping Study highlight the overall potential of the project but did not include any potential for underground mining,” Edwards notes.
“The CSIRO study will be used to assist our team in designing deeper drill holes to target mineralisation that may fit into a future underground mining study of the deposit.”
What the study found
The study identified two stages of gold mineralisation, each with distinct structural and sulphide associations.
Stage one comprises ‘high-grade’ native gold with relatively low sulphide abundance, including subordinate cobalt- and nickel-rich arsenopyrite and pyrite within fault breccias.
Stage two, meanwhile, overprints stage one and is predominantly hosted within fault breccias, where invisible gold is closely associated with arsenic-rich pyrite and massive antimony-rich arsenopyrite.
Notably, stage one is the dominant contributor to the west-northwest–east-southeast-trending Hyperion and Tethys lodes. Stage two, on the other hand, contributes to the north–south-trending Seuss lode, hosted within an approximately 47–53m-thick fault breccia zone.
Structural analysis identified four extensional and three shear vein sets. Steeply dipping, east-southeast–west-northwest-striking extensional veins can host native gold. Comparison with assay data, however, shows these veins are not consistently mineralised.
“The study shows that the different lode orientations have different dominant mineralisation styles,” Edwards adds.
“This provides a stronger basis for interpreting the controls on high-grade gold and for targeting extensions around the existing Hyperion mineral resource and elsewhere along the broader Hyperion-Tethys and Suplejack structural corridors.”
The two stages have distinct geochemical signatures — elevated cobalt and nickel in stage one, elevated antimony in stage two — which will help distinguish mineralisation types in future drill samples.
From findings to drill targets at Hyperion
Hyperion is a structurally controlled orogenic gold system hosted within mafic volcanic, intrusive, and metasedimentary rocks of the Mount Charles Formation in the northern Tanami region.
The company’s March 2026 mineral resource estimate for Hyperion is 9.8 million tonnes (Mt) @ 1.4 grams per tonne gold for 454,000 ounces, comprising 212,000 ounces indicated and 242,000 ounces inferred.
The estimate informed a Scoping Study that generated an open pit production target of 4.2Mt @ 1.9g/t gold for 260,000 ounces.
Prodigy is considering further mineralogical, geochemical, and structural interpretations, which may form part of ongoing CSIRO studies. Future work may also target results from the deeper Northern Territory Geological Survey co-funded hole, due for completion in the December quarter.
Prodigy Gold is an Australian exploration and development company with a portfolio of tenements covering more than 20,000km² in the Tanami Gold Province.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Prodigy Gold
