Redstone Resources (ASX: RDS) has hit 10 continuous metres of copper mineralisation within a quartz vein at the Chatsworth prospect, part of the Tollu copper deposit at its wholly-owned West Musgrave project in Western Australia.
The intersection appeared early in a deep diamond drill-hole that had a total depth of 1,195m, returning a best assay of 10m at 1.37% copper from 193m including 4m at 2.37% from 195m, with a grade cut-off of 0.2% copper and a dilution of 0.7m at 0.052% copper from 193.3m included in the interval.
The copper intersection confirms that Chatsworth’s individual lenses of mineralisation are thick with significant continuous strike length at considerable depth.
Cobalt Also Present
The copper intersection also contained 1.2m of cobalt mineralisation grading 0.12% from 201.4m, indicating that copper could potentially be a secondary remobilisation from a Voisey’s Bay-style high-grade magmatic massive sulphide copper-nickel deposit at depth.
This is particularly significant, given that Tollu sits just 60 kilometres to the east of BHP Group’s (ASX: BHP) world-class Nebo-Babel deposit, which hosts 1.3 million tonnes contained copper and and 1.2Mt nickel, with similar geology to that of Voisey’s Bay in Canada.
Redstone believes West Musgrave has the right geological setting for similar Voisey’s Bay-style mineralisation, and the company’s drilling so far has highlighted this type of prospectivity in the Tollu area.
Historical intersections at Chatsworth in the same area feature one of 14m at 3.5% copper from 126m downhole, including 1m at 10.49% from 127m downhole, while drilling elsewhere at Tollu returned as high as 25m at 1.46% copper from 61m downhole, including 1m at 5.1% from 84m downhole.
WA Exploration Grants
The total cost of the deep diamond hole was significantly reduced by the grant of up to $220,000 Redstone received from the WA government’s exploration incentive scheme (EIS).
The company has since won an additional grant from the same scheme that it will use to co-fund a second deep diamond drill hole at Chatsworth.
Redstone is also considering a program of reverse circulation drilling of priority magnetic targets in a 7.5km corridor north-east of the Tollu resource.
The company has submitted a further 183 drill core samples for geochemical analysis, with results still pending.