Miramar Resources (ASX:M2R) has commenced diamond drilling at the company’s’ 100%-owned Whaleshark Project in the Ashburton region of Western Australia.
Miramar acquired the Whaleshark Project in 2020, as part of the company’s IPO, and is exploring for Iron- Oxide Copper-Gold (IOCG) mineralisation beneath younger sediments of the Northern Carnarvon Basin.
Since the Whaleshark tenement was granted in early 2021, Miramar has defined high-priority bedrock IOCG drill targets, including in the “neck” of the Whaleshark granite, comprising a combination of:
- Mobile Metal Ion (MMI) surface geochemical anomalism
- A discrete gravity anomaly crosscut by a NW-trending structure
- Strongly elevated copper, cobalt, gold, silver and REE results in “interface” aircore drilling
- REE signatures consistent with published data from the Prominent Hill IOCG deposit
The company was also successful in securing up to $180,000 through the Western Australian government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS) co-funded drilling programme.
Miramar’s Executive Chairman, Allan Kelly, said the company believed that Whaleshark had the potential to host a significant IOCG deposit, similar to Ernest Henry, Carrapateena, Prominent Hill or the recently discovered Oak Dam West deposit, for which BHP have recently announced an initial JORC- compliant “Exploration Target” of 500 – 1700Mt @ 0.8 – 1.1% Cu1.
Since commencing work at Whaleshark in mid-2021, we have defined a number of large, shallow and robust IOCG targets which have been further validated by the recent successful EIS application,” Mr Kelly said.
“IOCG deposits can be very large and potentially very valuable meaning exploration success at Whaleshark would have a significant positive impact on our company,” he added.
“We are therefore very excited to be drilling again at Whaleshark,” Mr Kelly said.
The initial diamond drilling programme will consist of 2-3 holes for a total of approximately 1,000m.”
