US — Alderan Resources Limited (ASX: AL8) has announced promising results from its Stage 1 drilling program at the New Years copper prospect in Utah’s Cactus copper-gold district.
The company reported intersecting high-grade copper mineralisation based on visual inspection and preliminary X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) readings of drill core samples.
The Stage 1 drilling program, consisting of three holes totalling 319 metres, aimed to verify copper mineralisation previously identified in historical drilling conducted in 1964 and 2002.
Two of the three holes drilled by Alderan have yielded significant copper mineralisation.
Hole NY2024-DDH2 intersected a 30-metre interval of copper mineralisation from 10.8 metres downhole, with spot pXRF readings reaching as high as 45.5 per cent copper between 14 to 14.2 metres.
The average of three separate readings over this interval was 23.2 per cent copper.
Additionally, a second two-metre zone of mineralisation at 72 metres downhole showed spot pXRF grades up to 28 per cent copper.
Hole NY2024-DDH3 encountered visible oxide copper mineralisation from the surface to a depth of 99 metres downhole, with pXRF assaying still in progress.
Scott Caithness, Managing Director of Alderan, expressed enthusiasm about the initial results, stating: “The visual estimates and pXRF spot readings on the core from the second and third holes drilled in the New Years programme are very exciting, with both indicating that near-surface potentially high grades of copper mineralisation have been intersected.”
The company believes that these new intersections may have significantly extended the mineralised zones reported in historical holes.
For instance, the 30-metre copper mineralised intersection in NY2024-DDH2 appears to correlate with and extend the historical hole NY-6 intersection, which reported 13.7 metres at 2.32 per cent copper within 19.8 metres at 1.67 per cent copper from 22.9 metres downhole.
Alderan has completed the Stage 1 drilling program and is now conducting detailed geological logging of the core and sampling for laboratory analysis.
The company has also begun work on the final design and permitting for a follow-up drilling program at New Years.
The positive results from the Stage 1 program have set the stage for a potential Stage 2 drilling campaign, which would focus on extending the mineralisation intersected in Stage 1 and testing geophysical targets.
However, the commencement of Stage 2 will depend on the final results from Stage 1 and necessary permitting.
As Alderan Resources continues to explore the New Years copper prospect, these early findings suggest promising potential for the project within the historically productive Cactus copper-gold district in Utah.
