Westar Resources (ASX:WSR) has received $55,689 from the Northern Territory Government’s Geophysics and Drilling Collaborations (GDC) program to fund an aeromagnetic survey at its Bunda Creek Project.
The company was one of only 26 successful applicants in Round 19 of the competitive GDC program, which provides funding to accelerate technically sound exploration concepts.
This grant will fund an aeromagnetic survey covering 569km² of the southwestern Birrindudu Basin, an unexplored region that Westar believes contains the necessary elements for sediment-hosted copper or other base metal deposits.
“The grant validates the company’s exploration strategy of seeking a tier one type of base metal deposit and will provide Westar with high-resolution data to enable a much more detailed interpretation to be made of the basin and basement architecture,” Non-Executive Director Eddie King says.
“Understanding the architecture is key to de-risking while advancing future drilling programs.”
The Bunda Creek Project comprises granted exploration licence EL34118 and contiguous exploration licence application EL34358 in the Birrindudu Basin. Recent studies by the Northern Territory Geological Survey, CSIRO, and Geoscience Australia highlight the basin’s prospectivity for copper.
The planned survey will overlap the eastern edge of an existing 100m line-spaced survey to the west, providing continuous coverage over approximately 1,200km² in a data-poor region.
The aeromagnetic data will help identify structural complexity combined with areas of thinned stratigraphy and basement highs.
During the March quarter, 3D inversion models from Southern Geoscience identified several steep, north-northwest-trending magnetic gradients. At least one of these features does not align with known mapped features, leading Westar to apply for the adjoining EL34358 tenement.
Historical drill hole ANT003 intersected black pyritic mudstone at approximately 300m depth, corroborating the presence of the target Limbunya Group stratigraphy.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Images: Westar Resources
