Taruga Minerals has uncovered a fresh new copper-gold prospect at its Uaroo East project in Western Australia’s northern Gascoyne region.
Rock chips collected along a one-kilometre quartz ridge have returned consistent gold and copper anomalies in ground with no recorded history of exploration.
The freshly discovered outcrop at Uaroo Ridge – part of the three new exploration licenses granted last month – places Taruga squarely in uncharted territory, with promising assays from the ridge suggesting copper-gold mineralisation at depth.
Taruga says the ridge runs for a kilometre, between 0.5m to 5m wide, with cross-cutting shear zones.
Multiple samples came back showing significant copper and gold with standouts including a 0.5g/t gold and 0.4 per cent copper sample, 0.4g/t gold and 0.4 per cent copper and a copper dominant 0.1g/t gold and 1.0 per cent copper grab.
Uaroo Ridge sits about 5km north of recent fieldwork at the company’s Thowagee prospect. The setup points to a hydrothermal vein or shear-hosted system, much like other old workings across Taruga’s patch. But Uaroo Hill looks to present a new opportunity with more ground-truthing now on the cards.
Field crews also verified the Moodong Well area in the northeast of Uaroo East. It features a 1.5km NW-trending quartz-rich shear up to 2m thick.
Taruga says its shear lines up with the big Goordeman and Uaroo faults slicing NW through the licenses – prime paths for mineral fluids.
Meanwhile at Thowagee, soil and rock chip sampling plus ground magnetics, gravity and fixed-loop electromagnetics have recently wrapped up, with results are due shortly.
The Uaroo Ridge prospect was identified on our maiden field reconnaissance program, with copper minerals malachite and chalcopyrite visible in surface outcrop. This new prospect has not been identified in WAMEX records, which speaks to the under explored nature of this 416km2 tenement package, and more broadly the entire Gascoyne province.
Taruga’s initial sweep drew on lessons from this year’s Thowagee push, zeroing in on structural lines and logged mineral spots across the 385-square-kilometres of new ground.
The newly mapped Uaroo Ridge prospect fits neatly into the broader Gascoyne setup, where faults like Goordeman and Uaroo have fed high-grade veins in the past.
Historical digs nearby are what drew the company to the area, searching for Uaroo-Hill’s staggering 77.7 per cent lead and 301g/t silver digs in the 1950s or even Uaroo West’s 26 per cent copper in the 1960s.
The polymetallic mix is no new feat for Taruga’s management, fresh from a $2 billion polymetallic win at Adriatic Metals, its co-founders Eric De Mori and Paul Cronin have joined Taruga for a deeper look at its ptomising project.
The structural complexity at Taruga’s newly granted licences hints at extensions under cover as plans for detailed magnetics and gravity runs over Uaroo Ridge and Uaroo Hill evolve.
The company says soil grids will shortly follow, seeking to trace the gold and copper signals along strike and sideways from the outcrop.
With assays from Thowagee inbound and the Gascoyne’s base and precious metal potential still lightly tested by modern tools, Taruga’s expanding prospects in a polymetallic province that’s all theirs is a junior greenfield explorers dream.
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