Stavely Minerals (ASX: SVY) is confident it has unlocked the potential of its western Victorian assets with a set of “outstanding” shallow high-grade hits at its Junction prospect.

Junction is located approximately 2 kilometres south of the company’s Cayley Lode deposit, which hosts a mineral resource estimate of 9.3 million tonnes at 1.23% copper, 0.23 grams per tonne gold and 7.0g/t silver.

Managing director Chris Cairns said the results of the highly successful 21-hole aircore drilling program have provided a new understanding of the structural controls on high-grade copper-silver mineralisation at Junction.

Regional implications

Mr Cairns believes this may have significant implications for regional exploration, with an emerging recognition of copper fertility along the approximately 30km-long Stavely structural trend.

“The exceptional widths and grades of copper and silver mineralisation returned – particularly for shallow aircore drilling – have provided emphatic justification for our long-held enthusiasm for the potential of the Junction prospect,” he said.

“Perhaps more importantly, the new understanding we have developed of the structural controls to this shallow mineralisation at Junction may have much bigger implications for further discovery across the Stavely project.”

Broader opportunity

The impressive drilling assay results – along with new high-grade rock chip float samples of up to 0.51% copper, 7.43g/t gold and 143g/t silver – have opened up a significant broader discovery opportunity for Stavely.

“Just a few hundred metres to the east, the largest copper-in-soil anomaly in the entire Stavely project has never been looked at in the context of this structural setting,” Mr Cairns said.

“In the bigger picture, this advance in our understanding could be applied to the entire [approximately] 30km extent of the Stavely structural trend.”

Stavely said that, while historic drilling at Junction returned impressive intercepts, the follow-up failed to confirm a consistent structural orientation for the high-grade copper-gold-silver mineralisation.

“This uncertainty has now been resolved with the recent aircore drilling,” the company said.

Multiple programs

The planned follow-up to the recent exploration success at Junction includes proposed diamond drilling underneath the recent aircore drill results.

Other drilling opportunities include diamond drilling of the Toora Road prospect and aircore drilling of the S2 and S3 porphyry targets.

Stavely is also investigating induced polarisation geophysical surveys at the S41 breccia-hosted gold target, with drilling to follow.