Cosmo Metals (ASX:CMO) receives approval for maiden drilling at Mona

Cosmo Metals has received approval from the NSW Resources Regulator for maiden drilling at the Mona VMS copper, gold and silver prospect within the Bingara Project in NSW.

The approved program comprises up to 8 drill holes for ~2,200 m beneath and along strike of the historic Mona mine workings.

Highlights

The program follows mapping and field investigations at Mona, where fresh, sulphide rich material collected from the mine dumps is interpreted to have come from the base of the historic workings.

The announcement states that this material could not be processed and effectively recovered when the mines were last operated in the early 1900s.

Geological mapping and surface sampling returned primary sulphide copper mineralisation from mine dump grab samples, including sample CBR0005 at 3.2% Cu, 4.14% Zn and 3.18 g/t Au.

Other samples returned gold grades of up to 11.65 g/t Au and silver grades of up to 204 g/t Ag, with associated high grade copper.

The gold and silver samples also contained elevated molybdenum of >200 ppm, together with bismuth and tellurium anomalism and cobalt depletion.

Cosmo states that these characteristics indicate a secondary mineralising event at Mona, likely representing an intrusion related overprint to the VMS mineralisation.

The project team considers this to represent remineralisation in feeder structures and leakage through the prospective VMS horizon.

Cosmo Managing Director Ian Prentice said exploration at the prospect had been

“building our knowledge from layers of geophysical, geochemical and geological data at this previously unexplored high conviction prospect.”

The proposed holes are designed to test the copper, zinc, gold and silver rich VMS lode position below the historic mine before extending through to the potential gold and silver rich feeder zone, with proposed collar positions and high priority target zones identified for the program.

Mona is located within the 5 km Everest Mona Victory Trend at the southern end of the Bingara VMS belt.

Exploration completed across the corridor has included LiDAR data collection, a high resolution airborne magnetic survey and a detailed soil geochemical survey.

Follow up geological mapping and surface sampling showed that the corridor hosts the Everest, Mona and Victory lodes.

Investigation of the Sweet Nell prospect, east of Everest, indicates that prospective target horizons may be stacked within the original or deformed stratigraphy.

The broader Bingara VMS belt is described as a semi continuous 20 km stratigraphic corridor comprising basaltic volcanics and associated sediments of the Nangahrah Formation, hosting at least 6 recorded historic copper VMS mines that operated into the early 1900s.

With regulatory approval received, Cosmo is advancing final documentation and local landholder engagement to enable preparation of the approved drill sites.

Discussions with drilling contractors are progressing in line with these activities to enable mobilisation as soon as possible.

Down hole electromagnetic surveying is expected to follow the initial campaign to assist in identifying lateral extensions of any massive sulphide bodies identified for subsequent drill testing.

Cosmo is also collating and analysing results from the auger based pXRF soil sampling program at the Plunkett and Cassidy prospect at Antimony Gully, with the aim of defining targets for follow up drilling.