The Conversation (0)
Key Highlights:
- Identification of new Central Porphyry | Venatica West a Porphyry Cluster
Site visit has discovered a significant outcrop of leached porphyry stockwork and ultra-potassic vein system which identifies a Central Porphyry intrusive part of a cluster system at Venatica West. Typical alteration and veining present within Bornite-Gold rich Copper Porphyry systems.
- Extremely dense veining and stockwork | Multi-stage Mineralisation
Stockwork of A-type quartz, magnetite and secondary biotite on Central Porphyry is the densest identified to date across Venatica West, suggesting significant hydrothermal activity, overlapping events, fracturing and multi-stage mineralisation at Central Porphyry, ideal for copper enrichment.
- Small portion of a much larger system | Central Porphyry Remains Open
Identification of Central Porphyry is an outstanding outcome, due to only a portion of the potassic stockwork zone outcropping, which could've easily been missed. Ultra-potassic alteration with dense stockwork as seen within this outcrop, generally tends to expand kilometres, with remaining footprint of alteration sitting under soil cover. Further fieldwork can identify full extent of this Central Porphyry.
- Potential for regional Porphyry system | SW - NE Regional Porphyry System
Preliminary fieldwork analysis on-going, with already a new Central Porphyry system being identified within virgin grounds at Venatica West, sitting ~3km Southwest of the high-grade Irka NE Porphyry and ~2km Northeast of the Irka SW Porphyry-Skarn system. Suggestive of a regional SW to NE trending porphyry cluster, filling the intersection of two district faults.
- Community Engagement Commenced | Early Community Approval
Early engagement has commenced with the local community, with multiple local members showing support for on-going exploration works. Altair's exploration team has also met with the President of the Community with very positive preliminary discussions. Altair has received initial community approval for exploration works with intention of putting forward long-term proposal of work programs, community incentive programs, project scheduling and local training.
Discovery of New Central Porphyry at Venatica West
The Central Porphyry is located on the Irka permit, situated ~3km southwest of the high-grade Irka NE Porphyry target and is a new intrusion system identified within Venatica West during initial site visit.
The upper zone of a new Central Porphyry has been identified through outcrop which consists of leached ultra-potassic stockwork of quartz, magnetite and secondary biotite dense veining, and surrounded by phyllic alteration halo and hosted within overprinted argillic alteration.
The ultra-potassic alteration suggests Altair is standing above the core of the Central Porphyry. The overprinting of strong argillic alteration has occurred from later stage hydrothermal fluids which has replaced the feldspars with clay material while maintaining the stockwork veining - suggesting a multistage mineralisation event which can significantly enrich the grades of copper sulphide and hypogene zone below. This leached stockwork from late-stage argillic alteration indicates the copper has been remobilized and disseminated into structurally favourable zones below, with potential to enhance grades within the contacts and breccia's at the core of the Central Porphyry.
The ultra-potassic zone generally sits right above the core of a Porphyry intrusion and in the case of the Central Porphyry, it is the densest set of stockwork, and veinlets discovered so far at Venatica West, with high alteration suggesting this area is the key part of hydrothermal activity and potentially the feeder to multiple other Porphyry systems.
The presence of dense secondary biotite veining on altered ultra-potassic outcrop not only indicates the presence of a new Porphyry system sitting below but also is an essential element for developing a large-scale Porphyry deposit within this particular belt.
Within other billion-tonne deposits proximal to Venatica, the presence of secondary biotite into the plays a key role in developing "scale" as its presence within porphyry stock and outwards into diorite host rock, tends to allow substitution of Fe2+ and Mg2+ with Cu2+, which can extend the copper mineral deposit footprint by a further ~500m radius in each direction from the main Porphyry core.
Key Takeaways
- Identification of new Central Porphyry akin to Bornite-Gold rich Copper Porphyries
- Ultra-potassic stockwork suggests we are standing above the core of the system
- Argillic overprint indicates a later-stage hydrothermal fluid enacted on Central Porphyry, leading to multi-phase mineralisation events.
- Leached outcrop, indicates copper has re-mobilized below into more structurally favourable zones allowing secondary enrichment in the porphyry core - which leads to higher grades.
- Presence of secondary biotite halo zone and veining in porphyry stock & diorite host is critical in developing scale within this belt for a large Cu-Au mineralisation zone beyond just the porphyry core.
- Structural alignment in SW-NE direction hosting a regional copper porphyry cluster. Irka NE Porphyry, the Central Porphyry and the SE Porphyry makes a potential corridor over more than 10km length.
This new Porphyry discovery adds on to the targets at Venatica, with 4x highly prospective undrilled targets for discovery being uncovered in this new district which is an extension of the belt which hosts multiple billion-tonne copper deposits, these targets at Venatica currently include:
- Irka NE Porphyry: Over 3.4km strike, with high-grade samples including:
- 7.0% Copper and 33g/t Silver
- 5.7% Copper and 43g/t Silver
- Irka SE Porphyry-Skarn: Large 6km2 anomalous area, with high-grade samples including:
- 4.8% Copper & 0.40g/t Gold
- 6.5% Copper & 0.52g/t Gold
- Central Porphyry: Newly discovered initial outcrop from field visit, part of a significantly larger system sitting under colluvial and soil cover. Ultra-potassic and advanced argillic alteration with significant stockwork and veining part of a separate porphyry intrusive.
- Venatica East: Over 17km of anomalous strike of copper stream sediments which are 5x background levels. Virgin grounds with potential to identify source of copper mineralisation feeding the streams and new major targets.
The identification of this Central Porphyry is significant and a result of the diligent fieldwork of the exploration team, as the outcrop is exposed over a minimal area and could've easily been missed. The degree of stockwork veining and hydrothermal activity suggests this alteration likely expands kilometres in each direction - with most of it sitting under post-mineral soil cover. Further detailed mapping and fieldwork will look to identify the true extent of this potassic alteration zone.
Venatica West is shaping up to be a regional porphyry system, hosting numerous high-quality targets for discovery. The Central Porphyry sits ~3km southwest of Irka NE and ~2km northeast of Irka SW, which indicates a structurally controlled regional porphyry trend SW - NE at Venatica West.
Community Engagement
Altair has received positive initial feedback from the community regarding its preliminary exploration activities and future plans. The community board has provided their approval and remains supportive with great relations built with local miners in the region who are eager for Altair to continue further exploration work.
Altair has also had an introduction and a very positive initial meeting with the President of the local community. Following from this, Altair representatives attended the initial community meeting and received approval to continue exploration works, with local members ready to assist. Altair continues to build upon existing supportive relationships within the community and will seek to provide a longterm formal proposal of its anticipated work programs, community incentive programs, project scheduling and local training. This proposal will be reviewed by the local community and President and will then be used to form the basis of monthly meetings with the community to build upon existing support.
Altair believes its early approach to engage the community and developing upon relationships which have been built over 10-years by the vendor of Irka will be key in fast-tracking exploration and development programs. Furthermore, this engagement is key to Altair's ESG core values and is expected to pay dividends in the future for both the Company and community. The early engagement with the community will also be critical in ensuring a smooth transition into its discovery programs.
Steps Forward at Venatica
The key anticipated steps forward aim to establish maximum value for shareholders through a scientific, systematic and diligent approach to exploration with the target of making a large-scale and globally significant discovery.
Venatica sits in the right the geological formation with all the key indicators capable of making such discovery. Altair plans to immediately initiate a comprehensive program to further evaluate the full potential of Venatica. The next key steps as part of the Venatica execution program includes:
- Evaluation of regional potential and detailed mapping
- On-going community engagement at Venatica West & Venatica East
- Rock chip and geochemical sampling program at Venatica West
Altair Chief Executive Officer, Faheem Ahmed comments:
"This is an outstanding find by our geological team within the high-grade Venatica Copper Project. This is now our third Porphyry target at Venatica West, and we are treading virgin and unexplored grounds here with potential to discover further mineralised outcrops and Porphyry's.
There is consistent dense veining across the outcrop which is exactly what you would like to see within a porphyry intrusion, suggesting significant magmatic fluid activity. More importantly, it appears the Central Porphyry has gone through multi-stage mineralisation, which not only introduces more copper into the intrusion, but also indicates copper has been leached from the outcrop and has potential to go through secondary enrichment below. These are all key indicators we are onto an exceptional exploration target, both with scale and potential to be high-grade.
We now have three key targets at Venatica West, two of them which has shown exceptional copper grades ranging 4 - 9% at surface across a large area. With the latest addition being this Central Porphyry, which has gone through significant leaching. Due to the leaching, we're looking for anomalous levels of copper at surface within the Central Porphyry, which will confirm to us this stockwork is likely to be significant mineralised at depth from remobilization of copper ions.
Furthermore, we are yet to even touch Venatica East, which hosts 17km strike of anomalous copper stream sediments. I'm incredibly excited to get boots on ground at Venatica East which is a pure greenfield opportunity and has never been systematically treaded or even sampled, and no one has ever followed up these prominent copper anomalies. We'll be the first Company to take an experienced geological team down to Venatica East, so the possibilities and upside is quite endless.
Simultaneously, we continue to progress works at Olympic Domain, our latest announcement on the project, 4 December 2024, has indicated a robust conductive ovoid, with historic drilling narrowly missing the core of the target. We are in intending to complete a follow-up TEM survey which can identify the precise depth of this ovoid, which will be critical for our drill program and targeting."
*To view tables and figures, please visit:
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About Altair Minerals Limited: Â
Altair Minerals Limited (ASX:ALR) (OTCMKTS:CHKMF) is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) with the primary focus of investing in the resource sector through direct tenement acquisition, joint ventures, farm in arrangements and new project generation. The Company has projects located in South Australia, Western Australia and Queensland with a key focus on its Olympic Domain tenements located in South Australia.
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Altair Minerals Limited
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