Trenching confirms gold discovery in PNG
Gold and battery metals exploration company Los Cerros Ltd (ASX: LCL) today announced assay results from a trench sampling survey from the Kusi gold-copper prospect, part of Ono Project — one of the company’s newly acquired projects in Papua New Guinea.
The reported results, of mineralised skarn assaying 22m grading 4.68g/t gold, provide important confirmation of a gold discovery at Leah’s Lode — a skarn unit at the Kusi prospect.
Leah’s Lode is a 2022 discovery defined by a single trench with strong copper and gold grades of 8m grading 11.5g/t gold, 2.6% copper, 24g/t silver.
This is not the main skarn unit at Kusi (Leah’s Lode is at a different stratigraphic level to the upper limestone unit), but nonetheless today’s result comes as a nice bonus, demonstrating potential >100m+ strike length.
Skarns units consist of hard, coarse-grained metamorphic rocks, formed when magma intruded a nearby rock mass. Some of the world’s best copper and gold (and many other minerals) deposits have been in skarn material.
The following plan view shows the main skarn unit (in large circle) and Leah’s Lode (smaller circle) at the Kusi Project.
In the following image, on the left are workers initiating the extension trench at Leah’s Lode.
On the right is a polished outcrop sample of garnet-chalcopyrite skarn grading 61.3g/t gold and 18% copper taken ~2m from the original Leah’s Lode trench.
Next up
We look forward to the commencement of LCL’s first drilling campaign in PNG.
LCL is focussing on high impact exploration drilling and has planned a 3,000m /18 hole diamond drilling program at Kusi to commence in March.
In this drill program LCL is aiming to:
- Further test skarn mineralisation within the upper limestone unit that was established from previous drilling, trenching and surface sampling. This will provide confidence in what LCL has on its hands in its target drilling areas.
- Gauge the potential regional scale to get an understanding of just how big the skarn unit is. The exploration program will include trenching and mapping to define the extent of the mineralised skarn horizon which occurs within the upper limestone unit and over a total area of approximately 3km x 1.5km.
- Gain a better understanding of the central copper porphyry. Drilling and surface work is instrumental in locating the porphyry source.
