Highlights
- First Au (ASX:FAU) has received positive assay results from its exploration drilling program at the Dogwood Porphyry Copper and Gold project.
- The results highlighted the copper porphyry potential of the project.
- The deepest hole of the program produced multiple mineralised intersections.
- Intersects include 0.2m @ 0.324% copper and 1.7% zinc from 241.7m and 0.6m @ 0.24% copper from 322.4m.
Shares of First Au Limited (ASX:FAU) gained over 11% in the early hours of trading on 8 December 2022. The share uptick followed a company update on another set of encouraging assay results from the Dogwood Porphyry Copper and Gold project.
As per the company, the results highlighted copper porphyry potential of the project. The results indicated that the polymetallic mineralisation footprint extends for more than 2km across the project area.
The deepest hole has witnessed multiple mineralised intersections, as shown below:
Data source: Company update dated 8 December 2022
Dogwood drilling establishes copper mineralisation extent
With this exploration drilling program at Dogwood, the company aims to establish the extent of copper and gold mineralisation over a large (~4 x 2 km) area.
(Image Source: Company update dated 8 December 2022)
FAU opted for drill testing at depth for a single hole to ensure the testing of all the targets, targets, generated based on the review of the geophysical, geochemical and historic drilling assay datasets.
Subsequently, Hole 4 was drilled ~200m north of Hole 1, which has already seen more than 70m downhole disseminated copper mineralisation, including 0.5m @ 0.807% copper section.
The characteristics of Hole 4 are:
(Source: © 2022 Kalkine Media®, Company update dated 8 December 2022)
FAU is pretty optimistic about the potential beyond the bottom of Hole 4 and the previously drilled comparatively shallower holes (1, 2 and 3).
The results from Hole 4 follow previously announced initial assays, which highlighted extensive zones of copper and gold mineralisation with a copper grade of more than 0.8% and gold of 5.62 g/t.
Geology highlights increase in higher temperature alteration
The geological logging and petrophysical magnetic susceptibility signatures across the project indicate an increase in higher temperature alteration.
As per FAU, such alterations are associated with biotite and magnetite (potassic) and sulphides with depth which was also seen in Hole 4.
Attached below is the summary of the geology intersected by the drilling:
(Source: © 2022 Kalkine Media®, Company update dated 8 December 2022)
Way ahead for FAU
The company’s geologists are highly boosted by the results and are preparing for a subsequent reverse circulation drilling exploration program for:
Testing beneath Hole 4
Further defining the strike and depth extent of the copper mineralised granodiorite intrusion (holes 1 and 2 intersections)
Evaluating economic hypogene copper potential
Share price: FAU shares were trading at AU$0.005 at the time of writing on 8 December 2022.