ASX-listed explorer, Taruga Minerals continues to deliver significant copper hits from its Wyacca discovery at its Mt Craig project in South Australia, growing the mineralised area to a hefty 2.1km long by 1.1km wide zone. Multiple holes returned intervals going more than one per cent copper, including 5m at 1 per cent copper from 121m in one hole.
Wyacca sits in the north of the 100 per cent owned Mt Craig tenure located on the copper-rich Adelaide Geosyncline. It lies within the G2 structural corridor that is revered for hosting BHP’s world-class Olympic Dam mine and OZ Minerals’ Carrapateena and Prominent Hill operations.
The Mt Craig landholdings contain more than 60 known copper occurrences and 32 historical small scale copper mines covering a continuous strike length of more than 34km, according to the company.
Taruga has been returning solid copper intercepts at Wyacca since the discovery earlier this year returned 5m going 2.4 per cent copper from 17m, 11m at 1.5 per cent copper from 85m and 7m at 1.8 per cent copper from 87m.
Management says the latest intercepts have successfully extended mineralisation in the main Wyacca area by more than 700m to the east and 200m to the north-west.
Other new hits include 2m at 1.2 per cent copper from 36m, which also takes in a richer 1m interval at 2.2 per cent copper.
Elsewhere, drilling returned 2m at 1 per cent copper from 80m, 1m at 1.6 per cent copper from 29m and 3m at 0.5 per cent copper from 127m.
Curiously, the drilling has shown potential for Wyacca to host high-grade copper mineralisation in different structural settings to the current copper hosting Tindelpina Shale stratigraphy, according to Taruga.
The company now plans to target structural zones across a 4.7km long by 1.5km wide alteration zone at the prospect.
Interestingly, Taruga says it has also identified multiple new mineralised trends within the Wyacca structural zone.
To the north of existing drilling, reconnaissance exploration has reportedly detected more than 500m of un-tested strike that coincides with small-scale historical copper workings within a zone of dense veining.
The company says it has also mapped another un-tested mineralised strike of more than 500m length some 3.1km along trend to the Worrumba-19 high-grade copper zone where drilling returned 7m at 1.8 per cent copper.
Reconnaissance works including soil geochemistry across Tindelpina Shale and cross cutting structures are ongoing.
Taruga is now set to launch a maiden 500m diamond drilling program as it looks to develop a better understanding of the mineralisation and structure at Wyacca. The rods are set to start turning in the coming days.
The drilling will also include the Morgan’s Creek prospect to the south of the Mt Craig tenure.
Taruga recently delivered multiple broad and high-grade rare earth element hits at Morgan’s Creek including an impressive 9m strike going 1,059 parts per million total rare earth oxide. Other critical battery metals such as lithium, scandium and vanadium were also intercepted.
Further diamond and reverse circulation drilling to test strike extensions and new targets is also planned for Mt Craig.
The mineralised footprint at Wyacca continues to grow as Taruga keeps dishing out solid copper hits at the prospect, located in one of the premiere copper regions of Australia, if not the world.
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