Taruga kicks off auger program in copper, rare earths hunt

Taruga Minerals has hit the ground running with an auger drilling campaign at its fully owned Mt Craig copper project in SA just weeks after receiving a $650,000 exploration funding boost from the state government. The work will be accompanied by high-resolution ground magnetic surveys, geophysical modelling and mapping that will focus on previously undrilled targets ahead of the company’s planned RC drill program at the site.

Taruga says fresh exploration will highlight geochemical profiles across recently identified clay-hosted rare earths in addition to shallow copper targets between 2m to 20m deep.

The augur can drill to about 14m to obtain indicators of a rare earths deposit and concealed copper mineralisation that cannot be seen from the surface.

We have applied our own concepts and new data to build these new targets and prioritise them. The auger results will assist in guiding RC drilling set to commence in July, during which we will be testing more targets than we ever have before at Mt Craig.

The company received a significant funding boost to its exploration plans at Mt Craig this month with a $650,000 grant from the SA Government’s Accelerated Discovery Initiative that aims to accelerate new mineral discoveries for key commodities in regional parts of the state.

The company has secured two separate grants of $325,000 to explore for copper and rare earth elements at the operation.

Planned exploration at the project includes the Wyacca deposit where the company discovered high-grade sediment-hosted copper during its 2021 maiden drilling campaign, in addition to Birthday Ridge where copper mineralisation was found from surface by historical exploration.

It has been a busy month for Taruga. Last week it signed an agreement with the Adnyamathanha Traditional Lands Association, or “ATLA” to conduct heritage surveys on priority targets at the company’s SA projects.

The agreement includes Taruga’s Flinders, Torrens and Mt Craig projects in addition to exploration licences currently under review by the SA Government.

Taruga says the agreement is a significant milestone in relation to land access across its SA tenements. ATLA is responsible for administration of Native Title rights and heritage interests of the Adnyamathanha people, who are key traditional owners across Taruga’s SA projects.

ATLA is currently under special administration and is unable to execute a native title mining agreement, or “NTMA” during this time.

However, Taruga says it is optimistic the association’s administration will soon allow the completion of an NTMA to benefit the Adnyamathanha people and the company.

The Flinders, Torrens and Mt Craig projects are within a major regional-scale fold structure called the Adelaide Geosyncline.

The Adelaide Geosyncline is comparable to the Katangan Orogen that hosts a number of Central African Copperbelt deposits. The company says its interest zone in South Australia is known to host a similar style of mineralisation.

The three projects also sit at the intersection of two major structural corridors, one of which hosts BHP’s world-class Olympic Dam deposits and Oz Minerals’ massive Prominent Hill and Carrapateena copper-gold deposits.

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