Satellites don’t miss much nowadays when it comes to monitoring fresh land disturbance, particularly where cloaking vegetation is sparse.
It is something that Rio Tinto is finding out, no doubt much to its annoyance, at its yet-to-be formally confirmed copper discovery (reported here first on April 6) in the northern reaches of Western Australia’s remote Paterson province.
While Rio is yet to confirm the discovery in what is Lawrence of Arabia-type country, latest satellite imagery suggests it is indeed on to something that just might shape up as special, rewarding Rio for its efforts, and giving a bunch of exploration juniors looking to make it big in the Paterson a leg up.
Every time it punches in another drill hole, we’ll all know about it thanks to the satellite imagery being captured over the discovery every five or six days. It’s a satellite driven continuous disclosure regime outside of Rio’s control, and the ASX for that matter.
Latest public domain satellite imagery shows that amongst the sand dunes of the Paterson and some 120km north-north-west of Newcrest’s once Tier 1 Telfer goldcopper deposit, Rio has drilled at least 10 holes at 200m spacings with selected 100m infill holes. More to the point is that the satellite imagery recently picked up nearby site preparation work for what is said to be a 40-man camp.
Building a camp in sand dunes is most unusual. Rio obviously wants to be up nice and close to what it has found and not spend a couple of hours each day trundling over the dunes to get there.
Back on planet earth, the scuttlebutt is that after mapping a subtle IP granite-related anomaly, drilling by Rio hit primary copper at a depth of 40m and then visible primary mineralisation down to depths of 180m in two holes 200m apart just before what was the 2017 drilling program came to an end.
