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Rowena Duckworth
True North Copper has continued to turn up the heat at the company’s Mt Oxide project in northwest Queensland, extending the strike of its Aquila copper-cobalt-silver discovery after a fresh round of geophysics lit up new targets along the prolific Mt Gordon Fault Zone.
The company’s latest induced polarisation (IP) survey has pushed the Aquila copper-cobalt-silver anomaly another 500 metres north of existing drilling. It has now increased the total Aquila strike to more than 1.5km, with the system still open along strike and at depth.
True North says IP was chosen as the preferred geophysical technique because of its response to the highly conductive and chargeable chalcocite or copper sulphide mineralogy, common in the region’s deposits.
As well as stretching Aquila’s strike, the IP also picked up the same geophysical signature that led to the original Aquila discovery; a combination of elevated chargeability and conductivity closely tied to broad zones of sulphide-hosted copper, cobalt and silver mineralisation.
‘This is a highly encouraging result and reinforces the significance of the new high-grade Aquila copper-cobalt-silver discovery.’
True North Copper managing director Andrew Mooney
The company says the latest results continue to validate its geophysics-led exploration strategy, which has already delivered the kind of drill numbers that make explorers sit up straight.
Previous drilling at the discovery returned a headline 145 metres grading 0.75 per cent copper, 0.12 per cent cobalt and 2.9 grams per tonne (g/t) silver from just 28m depth, including a richer 53-metre section running 1.18 per cent copper.
Another hole punched out 30m at 2.45 per cent copper from 20m depth, featuring a high-grade core of 10 metres at 5.31 per cent copper and 12g/t silver. A third intercept delivered 59m at 1.77 per cent copper, including a bonanza-style 7m section grading 7.9 per cent copper – one of the best hits from the broader Mt Isa region in recent years.
These broad, high-grade hits are hinting at a mineralised system with real scale and the latest geophysical work would appear to back this up, suggesting Aquila could be part of something far larger.
The completed IP program was specifically designed to see beyond the current drill footprint and it has done exactly that. The 3D inversion results show the Aquila anomaly extending strongly to the north, with chargeability and conductivity signatures comparable in magnitude to those already proven up by drilling.
Geologically, the project sits within the world-class Mt Isa mineral province and along the same Mt Gordon Fault Zone that hosts several major copper systems across the district.
Increasingly, the story at Mt Oxide is becoming more than just Aquila. Beyond extending the main discovery, the phase one IP program has also strengthened anomalies at the nearby Apollo and Acanthis prospects, supporting True North’s view that multiple parallel mineralised structures may run through the broader Mt Gordon fault zone corridor.
Notably, these northern extensions lie beneath surface quartz-hematite breccias displaying copper oxide staining and pathfinder geochemistry – the same kinds of indicators that flagged the original Aquila discovery.
Apollo in particular carries a strong chargeability anomaly exceeding 18 millivolts per volt, which, together with infill work, has improved the definition of discrete targets, now earmarked for the upcoming 2026 drilling campaign.
Infill IP lines completed south of Aquila have also added texture to the picture, identifying zones of elevated chargeability that weren’t adequately tested by last year’s drilling. The results point to potential structural complexity associated with the intersection of the Dorman Fault and the north-south Mt Gordon fault zone.
For context, the Dorman Fault is home to True North’s Vero deposit, which hosts a combined copper-silver-cobalt resource of 15.03Mt at 1.46 per cent copper – just 4km to the south-west. The geological ingredients that formed Vero are the same ones the company is chasing along the broader corridor.
True North Copper managing director Andrew Mooney said “This is a highly encouraging result and further reinforces the significance of the new high-grade Aquila copper-cobalt-silver discovery. The strong correlation between IP anomalies and Aquila mineralisation continues to validate our geophysics-led exploration approach and increases our confidence in the potential to rapidly expand the system through additional drilling.”
True North says it’s now planning follow-up drilling, expanded IP coverage and downhole electromagnetic surveys to chase the growing Aquila system deeper and further along strike.
For a company running a three-platform growth strategy – growing Mt Oxide, developing near-term cashflow at its Cloncurry copper project and pursuing regional discovery – the Aquila system is increasingly looking like the centrepiece that could underpin a much larger standalone development story over time.
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