Talisman Mining’s Durnings prospect delivers exceptional copper-gold and base metal mineralisation

Talisman Mining (ASX: TLM) has identified two new zones of strong copper-gold and base metals mineralisation from Stage 2 follow-up drilling at the Durnings prospect within its wholly-owned Lachlan project in central New South Wales.

Thick and high-grade intercepts from a total of 13 reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling holes adjacent to the Durnings discovery hole confirmed the zones, which returned “exceptional” results in line with visual observations of massive, semi-massive and disseminated galena-sphalerite-chalcopyrite.

The Base Metals Zone measures 25.2 metres and contains massive, semi-massive, matrix and laminated galena-sphalerite-silver, along with lesser chalcopyrite-gold from 198m downhole.

Best assays from this zone were 7.5m at 1.5% lead, 2.2% zinc, 23.6 grams per tonne silver, 0.3% copper and 0.31g/t gold from 198m and 7.4m at 6.7% lead, 2.9% zinc, 137g/t silver, 0.2% copper and 0.24g/t gold from 218.8m, including 1.7m at 26.5% lead, 7.8% zinc, 558g/t silver, 0.7% copper and 0.81g/t gold from 224.5m, containing 1.1m of massive sulphide.

The Copper-Gold Zone measures 28.3m and contains massive, matrix and blebby chalcopyrite-galena-sphalerite-gold-silver from 370.5m downhole in an extensively altered quartz-carbonate vein breccia.

It returned thick, high-grade intercepts such as 28.3m at 4.3g/t gold, 0.9% copper, 3.8% lead, 0.7% zinc and 26.5g/t silver from 370.5m downhole, including 10m at 7.94g/t gold, 1.0% copper, 9.9% lead, 1.5% zinc and 61.3g/t silver from 374m.

‘Standout’ discovery

Managing director Andrew Munckton said the results show that Durnings is emerging as a significant greenfields base and precious metal discovery.

“Our Stage 2 program intersected impressive visual base metal and copper-gold mineralised intersections […] to confirm that Durnings is a standout greenfields discovery comprising two distinct high-grade zones,” he said.

“Both zones offer huge potential and represent very exciting exploration targets.”

“We recently initiated a downhole electromagnetic survey to search for additional offhole conductors across the 2.0km strike length that has been tested to date.”

He said Stage 3 drilling would commence once all assays and survey results had been returned.

Base metals results

The Durnings prospect is located 35km south-east of Talisman’s Rip n Tear discovery within the Lachlan project area.

In January, the prospect returned high-grade base metal results from a total of six holes for 1,710m of broad-spaced RC drilling completed in November.

The holes intersected significant zones of disseminated galena (lead), silver, sphalerite (zinc), chalcopyrite (copper) and gold in sulphide-rich altered volcanic rocks.

Best results were 28m at 0.4% lead, 7.8g/t silver, 0.7% zinc, 0.02% copper and 0.11g/t gold from 4m to 32m, including 10m at 0.5% lead, 10.8g/t silver, 1.8% zinc, 0.03% copper and 0.15g/t gold from 22m to 32m.