The new mineralisation is from recent drilling completed by Adelaide Resources in the Western part of the company's 3.5km long flagship Alford West copper prospect, northeast of Wallaroo, and represents the discovery of the second high grade copper zone found at the prospect.
ALWAC171, the drill hole which made the latest discovery, intersected copper grading 1.47 per cent over a 23 metre downhole width.
Significantly, the intersection commences just six metres vertically below ground level. In addition, the discovery intersection also includes even higher grade copper zones of 11 metres at 2.23 per cent Cu and 5 metres at 3.36 per cent Cu – starting just 10 metres down the drill hole.
Adelaide Resources' managing director, Chris Drown, said that the Alford West prospect area was emerging as an "exciting new era copper play in this historic copper mining region".
"We are also encouraged that further copper mineralisation has been observed in other holes nearby this latest discovery, with assaying of samples from those holes yet to be completed," Drown said.
"Of most significance is that the latest discovery hole is about one kilometre to the west of the area we drilled last year which also contains high grade zones - so we now have two high grade copper targets to further evaluate within the broader Alford West prospect.
"Only eight historical deep holes have ever been drilled into the western 2 kilometres of the 3.5 kilometre long Alford West target, and our strategy in the current drilling program is to complete an initial broad spaced drill coverage of this poorly tested area.
"Certainly, the ALWAC171 hit ranks among the better intersections that have been achieved in holes drilled by either Adelaide Resources or past explorers on the broader Moonta Copper-Gold Project.
"We want to look at the results from all our initial broad spaced drill lines over the Western part of Alford West before finalising the design of our stage 2 follow-up drilling, scheduled to commence in about three weeks, but it is already clear that some of that follow-up drilling will be around ALWAC171."
In its 2013 program, Adelaide Resources drilled 122 aircore holes on 11 traverses over a 1.1 kilometre strike length in the eastern part of the Alford West prospect. Copper and gold mineralisation presented on every traverse.
This program delivered standout intercepts of 20 metres at 4.2 per cent copper from 32 metres; and 45 metres at 1.56 per cent copper and 1.83g/t gold from 13 metres.
The company is also planning to further drill out this eastern zone to more fully evaluate its high grade copper and gold resource potential.
