Tennant Minerals Limited has identified two large-scale, high-priority exploration targets south of its flagship Bluebird Copper-Gold Project, expanding the company’s search for significant mineral deposits in the Tennant Creek region of the Northern Territory.
A recent review of historical exploration, combined with new geochemical and gravity data, has highlighted the Babbler Gold Prospect and the Wedge Copper-Gold Prospect as compelling opportunities for further drilling and development.
Both prospects are located approximately 35km east-southeast of Tennant Creek, with Babbler situated seven kilometres south-southeast of Bluebird and Wedge five kilometres to the southwest.
The Babbler Gold Prospect, first identified in 1973 by Noblex, sits on a prominent positive magnetic anomaly adjacent to a gravity low.
Historical drilling in the 1970s partially tested these geophysical anomalies, revealing widespread gold anomalism in pyrite and chlorite-altered rhyolites across drillholes spaced over 500 metres apart.
Notable historical intersections include:
- 13m @ 0.48 g/t Au from 90m, including 7m @ 0.68 g/t Au from 94m (DDH466)
- 22m @ 0.42 g/t Au from 33m, including 6m @ 0.61g/t Au from 33m, 3m @ 2.91g/t Au from 71m, and 14m @ 0.31 g/t Au from 81m (DDH468)
- 12m @ 0.57 g/t Au from 6m, including 1m @ 1.22 g/t Au from 3m, plus copper anomalism up to 1,200ppm (DDH469).
The high level of gold anomalism across widely spaced holes defines a potential kilometre-scale gold anomaly, indicating a large-scale gold system.
Babbler’s geology features good outcrop of volcanic and sedimentary rocks from the Paleo-Proterozoic Ooradidgee Group, lying near the contact with the Lower Proterozoic Warramunga Group — the host of most known copper-gold mines in the Tennant Creek mineral field.
Recent research by the NT Geological Survey further boosts the prospectivity, suggesting potential for copper and gold mineralisation in the untested Ooradidgee Group and the presence of volcanogenic massive sulphide (VHMS) deposits in the region.
The Wedge Copper-Gold Prospect, also identified in 1973, is a discrete 1.5 kilometres by 650 metres block of Lower Proterozoic Warramunga Group rocks, featuring visible ironstone and gossan development.
Soil sampling has revealed significant anomalous copper, iron, and bismuth, marking it as another priority target for wide-spaced reverse circulation (RC) drilling.
Tennant Minerals plans to conduct wide-spaced RC drilling at both Babbler and Wedge, as well as at the newly interpreted sub-surface copper anomalism at Bluebird East.
The company is also progressing a collaboration with the Strategic Alliance of companies in Tennant Creek, working towards a scoping study for a shared copper-gold processing facility in the region.
Tennant Minerals CEO Vincent Algar expressed strong optimism about the renewed exploration focus at Babbler, stating: “At Babbler, the logging of pyrite and chlorite alteration within felsic volcanics in wide-spaced diamond drillholes during the 1970s containing elevated gold values is considered highly encouraging for presence of a large gold system in the area.
“No significant exploration has been conducted on the project since then, possibly because the host rocks were not typical of the Tennant Creek style copper-gold mineralisation targets at the time.
Algar noted that several new factors have greatly enhanced Babbler’s exploration potential, including the recent discovery of the high-grade Bluebird copper-gold system nearby and NT Geological Survey research indicating VHMS-style deposits in the Ooradidgee Group.
He added that, given Babbler’s favourable geology, high gold prices, and advances in ore processing, the scale and strength of the gold anomaly warrant substantial follow-up exploration.
Tennant Minerals’ expanded exploration program underscores the growing potential of the Tennant Creek region as a major source of copper and gold, leveraging both historic data and modern exploration techniques to unlock new mineral resources.
