Terrain Minerals (ASX:TMX) has identified seven high-priority gold targets for drill testing at its Smokebush Project in Western Australia.
Independent geophysical consultancy Newexco Exploration interpreted and modelled data from a 23.4 line kilometre induced polarisation survey covering the Lightning, Monza, Hurley, and Paradise City prospects.
The strongest chargeability anomaly lies immediately north of the Monza structure, which forms part of the Lightning mineral resource estimate announced in July.
The response measured more than four times the background level and has been modelled as a discrete source dipping steeply to the east. Terrain has designed two holes to test the anomaly.
Executive Director Justin Virgin says the result stands out because it lies along the same structure that hosts the Lightning resource.
“We’ve also identified a genuinely new structure to the west that has never been drilled,” Virgin says.
This north–south structure, located about 1,500m west of Lightning, extends across several survey lines. Terrain has designed four holes to test the area.
Another target along the Lightning and Monza structures returned a broad chargeability response of 6 millivolts per volt against a background of 3 millivolts per volt. The anomaly lies within 50m of a historical hole that returned gold grades above 5 grams per tonne.
Terrain has designed 45 reverse circulation holes totalling 7,420m across the survey area. The initial inventory includes eight priority-one holes covering 1,595m and five priority-two holes covering 920m.
The company cautions that chargeability anomalies at Smokebush can be caused by disseminated sulphides or magnetite, with drilling required to determine whether they contain gold mineralisation. It ranked the targets using structural interpretations, surface geochemistry, and known mineralisation rather than anomaly strength alone.
Terrain says it is finalising contractor arrangements for its next drilling campaign, which will also test extensions to the Lightning resource.
The wholly owned Smokebush Project lies 350km north of Perth and about 10km from Vault Minerals’ (ASX:VAU) Rothsay Gold Mine, within the same mineral field as Capricorn Metals’ (ASX:CMM) Mt Gibson Gold Project.
Write to France Pinzon at Mining.com.au
Images: Terrain Minerals
