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- Krakatoa Resources (KTA) has completed a drilling program at its Belgravia project, locating a geochemical “halo” indicating the existence of a porphyry-style gold-copper system
- The shallow aircore drill program consisted of 128 angled holes to an average depth of 18 metres, penetrating a 10- to 20-metre basalt slab
- The two best results indicated gold lodes around 190 parts per billion – quite promising results in the context of the geology at the site
- The company will now proceed with further exploration to refine its understanding of the underlying geology and locate deep drill targets
- Krakatoa Resources has taken a hit to its share price, dropping 33.3 per cent to a price of 3 cents a share at Wednesday’s close
Metals explorer Krakatoa Resources (KTA) has completed a shallow air core drilling program at its Belgravia project.
During drilling, the company located a geochemical “halo”, indicating the existence of porphyry-style gold and copper systems.
Drill, baby, drill
The company’s drill program consisted of 128 angled holes to an average depth of 18 metres, seeking to locate geochemical features associated with the porphyry systems.
A porphyry system consists of large grained crystals such as quartz scattered throughout ancient magma upwellings, which can contain metals such as gold, copper and molybdenum. Such systems are typically exploited via open-pit mining, where vast quantities of ore can be stripped and processed to extract the sparse valuable metals contained within.
The drilling program was concentrated at Bell Valley – one of six target sites at the project located via magnetic analysis. The exploration was aimed at uncovering the geochemical signatures associated with gold-copper systems.
Exploration manager Ian Cooper says the Krakatoa team were pleasantly surprised by what they found.
“The drill program went better than expected with previously hidden zones of monzodiorite and shoshonitic volcanics encountered and a geochemical halo identified at the Bella Target co-incident with anomalous gold and the previously defined geophysical signature.
“These features are encouraging and give us confidence for our on-going exploration,” he added.
There’s gold in them hills
The two best results indicated gold lodes around 190 parts per billion. Though the quantities of gold located appear tiny, these are actually quite promising results in the context of the geology present at the site.
When evaluating porphyry prospectivity, the presence of monzodiorite intrusions near the areas where gold was detected indicates the possible presence of an underlying porphyry system. This is what got Mr Cooper and the team excited.
Historical drilling at the Larras Lake Igneous Complex, located 400 metres from Belgravia’s boundary, detected similar indications of gold porphyry. Gold giant Newcrest conducted that exploration and, despite the low gold price at the time, recommended hanging onto the prospect as it showed considerable promise.
The location of the best results also indicates the mineralised zone actually exists further to the south and deeper than the recent drill program was able to target.
In that context, Krakatoa believes the preliminary results from Bell Valley are solid enough to warrant immediate additional exploration.
Onward and downward
Krakatoa will now proceed with a number of further exploration methods to refine its understanding of the underlying geology. This is prudent, given the potential deposits lie underneath a 10 to 20 metre layer of hard basalt which provides a significant barrier to any drilling.
The extra analysis will include several traverses of deep ground penetrating radar to identify further magnetic anomalies associated with gold-copper porphyry, and detailed mapping and sampling in the southern areas of the Bell Valley target area.
These processes are designed to narrow the focus of the future drill program.
The company will also continue to expand exploratory work at the other five Belgravia target sites, including Sugarloaf Creek and Guanna Hill.
Krakatoa Resources has taken a hit to its share price, dropping 33.3 per cent to a price of 3 cents a share at Wednesday’s close.
