Native Mineral Resources Holdings Limited (ASX: NMR) is preparing to undertake a ~700m drilling programme at the Maneater Hill Breccia located approximately 100km west of Cairns and 35km northeast of the established mining town of Chillagoe in Northern Queensland.
NMR was granted the granted the rights to explore tenement EPM28038 near its existing Palmerville Copper Project in July 2022.
The previously reported mineralisation and metal zoning found at the Maneater Breccia shares many similarities with the upper part of the >1Moz Au Mt Wright (breccia pipe) gold deposit, indicating a deposit may exist at depth, below the current limits of drilling.
The planned 700m diamond drill hole will be used to test the inferred zone of mineralisation below the current shallow level of drilling.
“NMR is delighted to announce that it is forging ahead with plans to drill the high-potential Maneater Breccia in October,” Managing Director, Blake Cannavo, said.
“Our technical team is extremely excited about the potential upside of this project owing to the previous identification of silver, copper and gold in the upper levels of the breccia.”
Maneater
The Maneater Hill Breccia is a proven sulphide-bearing, intrusion-related breccia pipe which occurs as a significant topographic high (Maneater Hill) centrally located within the tenement.
Existing information on the breccia pipe points towards a high potential for breccia-hosted copper and gold mineralisation below the predominantly silver, lead and zinc mineralisation identified near surface and in a single diamond drill hole completed in 1995.
Existing assays from historical drilling include silver grades of up to 15.8ppm Ag, copper grades up to 1810ppm Cu, Zinc grades of up to 9330ppm Zn, up to 10ppm Mo, and increasing gold grades up to 0.05ppm Au.
The breccia pipe is an irregularly shaped structure approximately 500m long and 250m wide outcropping as a prominent rocky hill. The breccia is hosted within the extensive poly-deformed metasediments of the Hodgkinson Province.
Previous exploration in the area has included soil and rock chip sampling and a single diamond drill hole.
The most recent exploration on the tenement was carried out by Renison Goldfields Consolidated over several years until 1996. A single diamond drill hole was completed in 1995 (MPD001 to a depth of 365.8m, Azi 285O, dip 50-53O) which revealed a pyrite-dominated, clast-supported breccia along with abundant sulphides including, but not limited to, galena (lead sulphide), sphalerite (zinc sulphide) and chalcopyrite (iron-copper sulphide) mineralisation. It has been noted that “Base metal mineralisation became more prevalent and coarser with depth as pyrrhotite also increased with depth and in areas of intense brecciation”.
At approximately 240m downhole, sulphide abundance is up to 100% massive sulphide over sub-meter section. Chalcopyrite is present in the core (based on logging) below 134m down-hole depth.
For further information please visit: https://nmresources.com.au/
