Tennant Minerals (ASX: TMS) has revealed new thick, high-grade copper and gold intersections from the latest step-out drilling program at its Bluebird discovery within the company’s 100 per cent-owned Barkly project in the Northern Territory.
The company says its latest campaign has confirmed the continuation of mineralisation to the east and west of the site, but also highlights untapped potential at depth.
The fresh assays from reverse-circulation (RC) drilling, which has so far stepped out an additional 50m, have thrown up some strong results including a 5m zone grading 8.3 grams per tonne gold, 2 per cent copper and 9.8g/t silver content. It features in a standout area at a depth of 233m that reported grades as high as 22.7g/t gold and 41.4g/t silver for an overall intercept of 14m running at 4 per cent copper equivalent.
Other intersections include an 18m zone grading 1.3 per cent copper equivalent from 260m and a 28m intercept with 2.1 per cent copper equivalent from 146m, further emphasising the healthy mineralisation in the Bluebird ironstone corridor.
The results form part of an ongoing two-stage drilling program Tennant has embarked on for 4500m of RC drilling at Barkly to test the extent of the Bluebird deposit, which is open in all directions. Further results are due shortly.
The second phase, consisting of up to 7500m of RC and diamond drilling, is set to explore new targets along the 2.5km Bluebird-Perseverance corridor. It includes drilling at the Perseverance target where the company has secured a NT Government grant to cover up to 50 per cent of the costs for a deep drill that is aimed at following up on previous high-grade gold results of up to 3m at 50g/t.
The latest assay results we have received from Bluebird have not only confirmed the high gold and copper grades from previous drilling programs, but have also extended the mineralised zones to the east and down-plunge to the west of previous drilling. The latest results reinforce our confidence in defining economic copper-gold resources within the Barkly project, in line with our goal to become a major player in the rejuvenated Tennant Creek Mineral Field, which has already produced 5.5Moz of gold and 700kt of copper.
Tennant Minerals CEO Vincent Algar
The company’s updated interpretation of its latest results has confirmed that the Bluebird deposit consists of up to four big, high-grade copper and gold lenses, each up to 300m in length and 200m deep within an east-to-west-trending ironstone host, that remain open to both the east and west.
A new hanging-wall zone of strong mineralisation was also discovered, continuing eastwards and at depth in two further drill holes. The new zone remains completely untested further to the east and at depth.
The highly-fractured geological setting of sedimentary rocks within mineralised ironstone around the Tennant Creek area has been the cause of some outstanding discoveries in the past 70 years.
The most notable are Juno, White Devil and Nobles Nob, all of which bear the same signature of being deep, ultra-high-grade deposits covering a relatively small footprint at surface. All of them hosted multi-million-ounce gold lodes.
With the intensity of Bluebird’s copper-gold-bismuth-hematite mineralisation, management believes it to be part of a much bigger system. The 5km gravity corridor within the Barkly tenement includes multiple repeats of Bluebird’s geophysical signature to the east and west and further exploration is underway to test the new targets.
As Tennant integrates its new results with detailed gravity, geochemical and air-core (AC) drilling programs, it appears that Bluebird may hold significant untapped potential. It is hopeful that continued exploration at the site may unlock further high-grade copper-gold resources, which is likely to keep investors on their toes as new results continue to flow.
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