MAJOR DRILL TARGETS IDENTIFIED AT ROSEBY SOUTH
• Two new large high-tenor, copper-in-soil anomalies with anomalism up to 4.6% copper at Harvest and 5.6% copper at Hobby
• Both anomalies are comparable to the response obtained at Altona’s Little Eva deposit
• Rockchip samples up to 14.4% copper and 0.74g/t gold at Harvest and 23.3% copper and 2.9g/t gold at Hobby
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· Two new large high-tenor, copper-in-soil anomalies with anomalism up to 4.6% copper at Harvest and 5.6% copper at Hobby
· Both anomalies are comparable to the response obtained at Altona’s Little Eva deposit
· Rockchip samples up to 14.4% copper and 0.74g/t gold at Harvest and 23.3% copper and 2.9g/t gold at Hobby
· Sparse 1990’s drilling at Harvest returned a best result of 74 metres at 0.52% copper and 0.11g/t gold
· Drilling to commence in coming months
Altona Mining Limited (“Altona” or the “Company” - https://www.commodity-tv.net/c/search_adv/?v=296468) is pleased to announce it has defined two new large, high-tenor copper-in-soil anomalies at its 100%-owned Roseby South Project (“Roseby South”) near Mt Isa in Queensland.
Roseby South immediately adjoins the southern boundary of the Company’s Cloncurry Project and MMG's major underground zinc mine development at Dugald River (Figure 5).
The Cloncurry Project is the subject of a US$235.5 million proposed joint venture (“JV”) with Sichuan Railway Investment Group (“SRIG”). Please refer to ASX release dated 2 June 2016 for further information regarding the SRIG JV.
Roseby South is a 100% Altona-owned exploration tenure. It does not form part of the arrangements with SRIG. The Roseby South Project has two granted Exploration Permits for Minerals (“EPM”) comprising approximately 476 km2 of granted tenure (Figure 3).
The exploration at Roseby South is the start of a campaign by Altona to expand its exploration activities in the Mt Isa Inlier. With this shift to further exploration, a re-evaluation of Roseby South was undertaken following its return to Altona’s management in 2015 when an option over the project expired. Field programs commenced in April 2016, targeting mineralised corridors that extend the length of the Company’s tenement position. Field work has focussed on high resolution soil sampling, prospecting and geological mapping.
The Harvest and Hobby anomalies (Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4) are the two best defined targets among numerous prospects which are at an earlier stage of definition.
An RC drilling program is being planned for Harvest and Hobby and, depending on exploration progress, Altona will also drill test one or two other prospects currently being evaluated. Various third party agreements and Aboriginal heritage clearances are required prior to any drilling commencing. This is expected to take 2-3 months. An image of the soil anomalism at the Little Eva deposit is also provided (Figure 4) to give a context for the targets and a regional analogy.
Altona will advise the market when drilling commences.
Figure 1: Harvest Prospect - Image of copper-in-soil anomalism and rockchip locations
Figure 2: Hobby Prospect - Image of copper-in-soil anomalism and rockchip locations
The Harvest and Hobby targets are characterised by:
Soil anomalism | Large and coherent copper-in-soil anomalies of similar size and tenor (+1000 ppm copper) to the copper-in-soil anomaly at the Cloncurry Project's Little Eva deposit (546,000 tonnes contained copper and 295,000 ounces of gold, Appendix 4). Peak copper-in-soils values within the anomalies range to up to 5.6% copper at Hobby and up to 4.6% copper at Harvest. An in-house methodology using rapid and cheap analysis via portable hand held XRF has been key to defining these anomalies with very close spaced sampling (Figures 1, 2 and 4).
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Rockchip anomalism | Anomalous and often high grade copper and gold values from rockchips of outcrops and float, both oxidised and fresh. For example, maximums of 14.4% copper and 0.74g/t gold have been returned at Harvest and 23.3% copper and 2.9g/t gold at Hobby. Rockchip analysis is via conventional analysis (Appendix 3)
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High grade drill results | No drilling has been conducted at Hobby.
At Harvest, sparse drill testing from the 1970's (Tables 2 and 3) illustrates the potential to host economic copper-gold mineralisation. For example drillhole TSP-2 drilled by Placer in 1992 (Figure 1) returned:
74 metres at 0.51% copper and 0.11g/t gold from surface:
including 8 metres at 1.65% copper and 0.18g/t gold, and 12 metres at 0.77% copper and 0.23g/t gold
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Favourable rocks | At Harvest and Hobby geological mapping has documented rock types, alteration and element associations consistent with significant IOCG deposits in the region.
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Major structures | The targets lie within two major structural corridors that transect the Mt Isa inlier and also host the deposits within the potential SRIG joint venture and resources contain 1.6 million tonnes of copper and 0.4 million ounces of gold (Appendix 4).
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Historical workings | Numerous historic workings ranging from surface trenching in the 1970's to shafts and pits from the 1920-40's have been identified at both targets.
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Geophysics | While the Harvest anomaly has the typical magnetic signature of many IOCG deposits in the region, the new target at Hobby has no associated magnetic response in regional data and consequently was overlooked in the past. Iron oxide minerals in the alteration observed at Hobby is dominated by hematite. |
A more detailed description of Roseby South and each of the targets is appended (Appendix 2) together with JORC Code Table 1 (Appendix 3) disclosure on exploration methodology. Whilst the targets are attractive, the tenor of surface anomalism is not a reliable guide to the nature of any potential underlying mineralisation.
Figure 3: Roseby South Project overlaid on magnetic image showing deposits, targets and exploration areas for the 2016 field season
Figure 4: A comparison of the Harvest and Hobby copper-in-soil anomalies with the Little Eva deposit. Note images are projected at matching scale and colour ranges
Please direct enquiries to:
Alistair Cowden David Tasker Jochen Staiger
Managing Director Professional Public Relations Swiss Resource Capital AG
Altona Mining Limited Perth Tel: +41 71 354 8501
Tel: +61 8 9485 2929 Tel: +61 8 9388 0944 [email protected]
[email protected] [email protected]
About Altona
Altona Mining Limited is an ASX listed company focussed on the Cloncurry Project in Queensland, Australia. The Project has Mineral Resources containing some 1.65 million tonnes of copper and 0.41 million ounces of gold. The first development envisaged is the 7 million tonnes per annum Little Eva open pit copper-gold mine and concentrator. Altona has completed a Framework Agreement with Sichuan Railway Investment Group to fully fund and develop Little Eva. Little Eva is permitted with proposed annual production(1) of 38,800 tonnes of copper and 17,200 ounces of gold for a minimum of 11 years. A Definitive Feasibility Study was published in March 2014.
1Refer to the ASX release ‘Cost Review Delivers Major Upgrade to Little Eva’ dated 13 March 2014 which outlines information in relation to this production target and forecast financial information derived from this production target. The release is available to be viewed at www.altonamining.com or www.asx.com.au. The Company confirms that all the material assumptions underpinning the production target and the forecast financial information derived from the production target referred to in the above-mentioned release continue to apply and have not materially changed.
Competent Persons Statement
The information in this report that relates to Exploration Targets, Exploration Results, Mineral Resources or Ore Reserves is based on information compiled by Mr Roland Bartsch, BSc (Hons), MSc, MAusIMM, and Mr George Ross, MSc, MAIG. Mr Bartsch and Mr Ross are full time employees of the Company and have sufficient experience which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity being undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2012 Edition of the ‘Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves’. Mr Bartsch and Mr Ross consent to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on his information in the form and context in which it appears.
Copper equivalence
When used, copper equivalent refers to copper in concentrate produced, or planned to be produced. It does not refer to metal contained within in-situ resources, reserves or drill results. The copper equivalent grade is calculated by factoring the copper grade by revenue from all metals (NSR) being copper, gold and silver.