Southern Hemisphere geophysical survey wins over market punters

Southern Hemisphere Mining’s recent deep penetrating magneto-telluric (MT) geophysical survey has indicated a potentially significant copper-gold deposit at its Curiosity target, which is part of the company’s flagship Llahuin copper-gold-molybdenum project, 350 kilometres north of Santiago in Chile.

The company says the MT 3D inversion model outlines an area of low resistivity at its Curiosity target that extends for more than 1400 metres below surface. The model has successfully defined a clear connection with Southern Hemisphere’s previous litho-geochemical depth target modelling and induced-polarisation geophysical data.

The co-incident relationship between the three exploration sources must have sounded like a winning trifecta to market punters, who today piled into the shares to boost the price by an impressive 75 per cent. The shares surged to a high of 3.5 cents on strong volumes of more than 20 million shares traded.

The new magneto-telluric 3D inversion model outlines an area of low resistivity, extending over 1400 metres below surface, which, reinforced by our geochemistry and shallow drilling results demonstrate Curiosity’s potential to host a significant copper-gold porphyry deposit. This study has increased the potential to grow the copper mineralisation footprint in the southern part of Llahuin substantially beyond the existing Central Cerro and Ferro open pit style deposits.

Stowell said the configuration of the Curiosity MT target is remarkably similar to an MT target at the large Valeriano porphyry copper-gold deposit in Chile operated by Atex Resources.

The Curiosity target is within the Southern Porphyry prospect. The target sits 550 metres below the previous Santa Maria gold workings and is about 1km in diameter and 2km deep.

The Curiosity target is supported by a soil geochemistry anomaly at surface and two shallow drill holes that produced drill intervals of 164m at 0.16 per cent copper-equivalent from 2m and 106m running 0.13 per cent copper-equivalent from 28m.

A 2m hit going 1.45 per cent copper-equivalent from 168m was a further encouraging result.

Management says surface geochemistry and topography highlight the transition to gold-dominated epithermal mineralisation southeast of the target area that fits a standard porphyry model of a large target at depth.

Porphyry deposits can often comprise bulk-scale operations with huge tonnage, low-grade, easy to mine deposits that can stretch from surface to deep underground.

The company plans to drill test the MT resistivity target with three to six deep holes. The first hole will be collared from an existing drill pad and drilled to 1400m to intersect the MT and modelled target zones. Drill planning is in progress.

An MT survey is an electromagnetic geophysical method for measuring the electrical resistivity of the earth’s sub-surface. The surveys were used to identify some world-class copper porphyry deposits in the region, including Atex Resources’ 61-square-kilometre Valeriano deposit in northern Chile.

Southern Hemisphere’s recent drilling program has sought to add scale to a copper resource that consists of 169 million tonnes grading 0.4 per cent copper-equivalent for 680,000t of copper-equivalent material, which was measured under the 2004 JORC guidelines.

The company recently nailed a series of impressive copper hits up to 128m thick as part of its 2024 program, which consisted of 2728m across 26 holes at Llahuin.

Results from the drill program comprised the large 128m hit stretching from a depth of 16m, which returned a grade of 0.41 per cent copper-equivalent ending in mineralisation. This included a 32m section going 0.57 per cent copper-equivalent from 66m.

A further 30m running at 0.42pc copper-equivalent from surface and 26m at 0.56 per cent copper-equivalent from 40m to end of hole rounded out the impressive thick shallow hits.

The results continued the run of thick drill intervals in the South American nation renowned as the global leader in copper production.

Management says many holes ended in mineralisation and a diamond drilling campaign in the first half of this year will target the mineralisation for depth extensions. The program also extended the project’s strike length 300m to the southwest, stretching it from 1.9km to 2.2km.

Mineralisation remains open in that direction and the company is fully focused on further drill testing to maximise the project’s full potential.

Management also remains focused on the ground that lies between its Cerro and Ferro deposits, which is known as the Cerro-Ferro link. The area has returned soil samples running about 1000 parts per million copper.

An updated resource is planned for this year and will establish a 2012 JORC-compliant updated mineral resource. With many thick intervals from surface or shallow depths, Southern Hemisphere feels it has a compelling opportunity to bolster the resource with near-surface tonnes and provide for a potential open pit operation at the project.

Notably, water has been intersected in every hole drilled and testing indicates it to be a fresh source. This offers the potential to provide all or the bulk of the water required for mining.

Southern Hemisphere’s Chilean project seems to have gained a leg-up from this latest survey result and the company will be keen to unleash a drill rig at the project to test what lies more than a kilometre beneath.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au