Gunson Resources completes initial hole targeting copper at Mount Gunson

Gunson Resources (ASX: GUN) has completed the first hole of the 2011 drilling program testing for high grade copper-gold at its 49%-owned Mount Gunson project, located in the Australian Olympic Copper-Gold Province.

The Olympic belt is over 500 kilometres long and contains about 75% of the known copper resources in Australia. The project straddles about 10% of the belt as four contiguous exploration licences covering about 1,320 square kilometres.
Deep diamond drilling commenced at the Emmie Bluff Prospect on 20th July 2011. The first hole (MGD 68) tested the western flank of the major north westerly trending 5 kilometres long Emmie Bluff gravity geophysical anomaly, shown to be associated with narrow zones of high grade copper-gold mineralisation by mid 2009 drilling.

Hole MGD 55 drilled in mid 2009, intersected two narrow zones of higher grade copper-gold mineralisation in basement rocks that included 7 metres at 2.2% copper with 0.5 g/t gold from 974 metres.

Hole MGD 68 was stopped in broken ground at 1,044 metres depth on 4th September 2011. The top of the basement in the hole was intersected at 876 metres, where it passed into altered felsic volcanic rocks interpreted to be Gawler Range Volcanics.

No copper sulphides were observed in the hole but the company said  basement core will be split and submitted for assay.

The rig commenced drilling the second hole (MGD 69), 2 kilometres north west along strike from MGD 68, on 5th September. The basement target zone in this hole is expected at about 900 metres.

Drilling at the Emmie Bluff Prospect is being funded by Xstrata Copper  subsidiary Noranda Pacific Pty Limited.

Noranda has the right to earn an extra 24% interest in the Project, in addition to the 51% equity it already holds, by spending an additional $6.5 million (for a cumulative amount of $10 million) on exploration by mid June 2013.

At the end of June 2011, Noranda had spent $4.3 million.

Due diligence on the 100% owned MG14 and Windabout copper prospects by two small-mine operating companies is in progress, with a view to concluding a profit sharing development agreement by the end of 2011.

Originally published at: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/19351/gunson-resources-completes-initial-hole-targeting-copper-at-mount-gunson-19351.html