LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Gold and base metal exploration company Rockfire Resources announced on Wednesday that its recent helicopter geophysical survey had doubled the footprint of potential copper mineralisation at its wholly-owned Copperhead porphyry project in North Queensland, Australia.
The AIM-traded firm said the copper target was now defined by a minimum area of five kilometres east-west by three kilometres north-south.

Faults and fractures were clearly defined and correlated well with known copper mineralisation already discovered in streams, soils, and drilling completed by Carpentaria Exploration in 1972, the company explained.

It said the drilling in 1972 tested an area less than 0.6% of the expanded target area, and added that the Copperhead target remained open in all directions.

The price of copper had increased "substantially" from $4,617 per tonne in March to $7,964 per tonne in December - an increase of 72.5% over the last nine months.

Planned work at Copperhead over the next six months included detailed prospect-scale mapping and soil and rock sampling within the expanded target area, with subsequent drilling.

"The result of the magnetic survey is a very exciting development for Copperhead," said chief executive officer David Price.

"Rockfire's determination to identify large mineral deposits is starting to bear fruit and a doubling of the Copperhead footprint is an exceptional outcome from our exploration efforts.

"Only a tiny portion of the geochemical and geophysical anomalism has been tested by drilling, and results from that drilling are extremely encouraging."

Visible copper minerals were observed throughout the drill holes; two of which were 300 metres long, Price said.

"Copperhead is increasingly becoming a high-value project for Rockfire and more work is therefore planned to advance the project.

"This geophysical survey has highlighted additional, large-scale targets, defined fault patterns, and identified a preferential direction for future drilling.

"In summary, this programme has achieved much more than we anticipated and has been very rewarding for the company."

At 1522 GMT, shares in Rockfire Resources were up 9.08% at 1.04p.

Email this article to a friend

or share it with one of these popular networks:

• DIGG
• FACEBOOK
• STUMBLEUPON
• MIXX
• YAHOO BUZZ
• DELICIOUS
• REDDIT
• NEWSVINE