by Ross Louthean

The Mount Isa ground held by Southern Cross Gold Consolidated (ASX: SX2) was ‘vastly under explored,’ chief executive Michael Hudson told Diggers and Dealers delegates.

The event is currently running in Kalgoorlie.

“Despite highly prospective stratigraphy of the Eastern Succession continuing south under cover, the region is vastly under explored,” Hudson said.

The company’s deep copper-gold targets lay south-east of Cloncurry.

The Mount Isa block of three licences covered 387sq km, with a known mineralised strike of 37km.

It adjoined ground held by South32 and Anglo American, taking in Anglo’s Diamantina East prospect.

Little drilling had been done where cover exceeded 300m, and the Isa project lay under 250–400m of cover.

The company saw scope for large iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) and Broken Hill-type (Cannington-style) deposits.

Airborne magnetic and ground gravity surveys, co-funded by a 2019 Queensland Government Collaborative Exploration Incentive (CEI) grant of $100,000, defined the F11 gravity target.

The company described it as a 1.95 mgal residual gravity anomaly with an adjacent magnetic high.

A second CEI grant of $200,000 co-funded drilling of F11 in 2020, to a final depth of 849.7m. The hole intersected disseminated and veinlet pyrrhotite-chalcopyrite from 750m to 839m.

Assays returned 20m at 730 ppm copper, with up to 0.87% copper in selected samples, alongside elevated silver, zinc and arsenic.

Two high-priority gravity targets in a major structural corridor remained undrilled, the company said. New gravity and magnetic data was yet to be collected over recently granted licence EPM 27626.

The company’s Diggers and Dealers presentation had focused on its Sunday Creek gold-antimony project, 60km north of Melbourne. The Queensland ground was left as future business.