Southern Hemisphere Llahuin porphyry up for EOY drilling program

Mapping by Southern Hemisphere Mining’s new joint venture partner FMR Resources across its southern porphyry at Llahuin in Chile has enabled FMR to refine its phase one targets for drilling later this year.

Alteration identified during mapping is consistent with the surface characteristics of the likely upper levels of a mineralised porphyry, supporting a model for an underlying copper-molybdenum mineralised porphyry system below.

The Llahuin project is close to the city of Illapel in the Coquimbo region, 350 kilometres north of Santiago in Chile, at about 1300m above sea level. The area is well-served by infrastructure, including roads, and is just 5km from the electricity grid and 20km from the nearest sealed airstrip.

Southern Hemisphere executed a conditional, binding terms sheet with FMR in June under which FMR has the right to earn up to a 60 per cent interest in four concessions forming the southern portion of Southern Hemisphere’s Llahuin project, including the large Curiosity southern copper-gold target.

Porphyry-style copper-gold-molybdenum mineralisation identified at Llahuin is mainly hosted in three main mineralised zones - the Central Porphyry, Cerro and Ferro deposits - which occur along a total north-south strike distance of about 4km.

While structural mapping at the southern porphyry target continues, FMR has commissioned reprocessing of its geophysical data to merge with other supporting evidence to home in on targets for drilling later in the year.

Alteration assemblages identified at multiple surface locations across the inferred southern porphyry target exhibit encouraging argillic (clay) alteration and silicification, accompanied by zones of quartz veining, quartz stockworks and oxides after sulphides.

This mapped surface evidence for what is inferred to be a possible copper-molybdenum porphyry coincides with a sizeable and coherent magneto-telluric (MT) resistivity target below.

Modelling shows the anomaly extends over an east-west distance of about 1km and a north-south distance of about 500 metres, with its top lying at about 460m below the natural surface level and extending vertically to a depth of about 1420m below surface.

The existence of a potentially mineralised porphyry at shallow depth is further supported by re-logging of selected historic drill holes, assisted by analytical data.

One inclined reverse circulation drill hole put in directly above the MT anomaly, which terminated about 330m above its uppermost shell, revealed hydrothermal alteration consistent with the upper levels of a porphyry system.

A second drill hole shows extensive silicification, interpreted as characteristic of a shallow porphyry emplacement environment.

FMR interprets the epithermal veining at surface, in conjunction with alteration, drill hole logs and their geochemistry, as pointing to a telescoped copper porphyry system.

The alteration assemblages confirm we have defined the upper levels of a copper porphyry system at surface. These are very encouraging early-stage results, which when coupled with the remodelled geophysical data due to be received in the coming weeks, will deliver the phase one drill targets across the exciting Southern Porphyry target area.

FMR is pressing ahead with its exploration across the southern porphyry target, including ongoing geological and structural mapping and geochemical sampling.

The reprocessing of magnetic, induced polarisation and magneto-telluric geophysical data and associated modelling is in progress, with results expected in the coming weeks.

When all the information is compiled, FMR believes it will be able to confidently refine its phase one target locations for drilling of the southern porphyry.

The company has begun tendering for drilling contractors to probe the southern porphyry. A drilling program is expected to kick off in the final quarter of the year.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au