Litchfield Minerals hunts for hidden copper in NT with geophysics push
- Doug Bright
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
If there is one thing explorers love more than tantalising outcrop, it is the idea that the real prize might be lurking just out of view beneath shallow cover.
This is exactly the driver behind Litchfield Minerals’ (ASX: LMS) strategy at its Oonagalabi project in the Northern Territory. The company has kicked off an induced polarisation (IP) geophysical survey to sniff out blind extensions of a copper-rich system that has already shown plenty of promise.
The new IP program marks a logical next step for Litchfield as it looks to extend Oonagalabi’s scale beyond what can be mapped relatively easily at surface.
The company has engaged Planetary Geophysics to run the IP survey, which will focus on tracking the prospective Oonagalabi Formation along strike and beneath areas masked by rugged terrain and shallow cover.
We believe there is a genuine possibility that additional Oonagalabi Formation exists blind beneath rugged hills and limited exposure.
Litchfield Minerals Managing Director Matthew Pustahya
In simple terms, Litchfield will use the survey to connect the dots. The company already knows the Oonagalabi Formation is fertile and also laterally extensive across its core project area. What it does not yet know is how far that system runs once it disappears under the tract of hills, scree and poor exposure within its tenure.
IP is a well-established tool for this sort of detective work and quite capable of highlighting sulphide-rich zones and structural features that might host copper mineralisation.
The company says the first phase of the survey will push southwest from the heart of Oonagalabi towards the Silver Valley area, where the formation is interpreted to continue along strike.
Management believes there is strong potential for repeated or offset positions of the same mineralised horizons in this direction, even though they are mostly obscured from view at surface.
By improving geological confidence in areas between known or surface-mappable outcrops, Litchfield hopes to define fresh targets that can be quickly tested by drilling.
Once that work is complete, the focus will shift to a prominent arc-shaped structure identified in magnetics that trends towards its VT1 target, which is a standout electromagnetic (EM) anomaly with a high conductivity of about 3000 Siemens.
Our next major step at Oonagalabi is to track this system beyond what we can easily see at surface. We know the Oonagalabi Formation is prospective, and we’ve already seen the scale it can run to across the project. This IP survey is designed to chase the formation south toward Silverado, then pivot to follow a major magnetic structure toward VT1, where a very strong EM conductor was defined and over a kilometre of Oonagalabi-style geology was mapped during the EM program.
Litchfield Minerals Managing Director Matthew Pustahya
That 3000 Siemens number alone is enough to make geophysicists sit up, but the story gets better. During earlier EM work, more than a kilometre of Oonagalabi-style geology was traced along the corridor, pointing to the same rich stratigraphy riding the coincident magnetic trend and lighting up the strong VT1 conductor.
For Litchfield, this coincidence of signatures is important. Magnetics and conductivity, tied in with structure and known prospective rock horizons and all lined up along a single trend, is exactly the sort of recipe explorers look for when building a portfolio of drill-ready targets.
In a nutshell, the IP survey is set to sharpen the picture, peeling back the cover to spotlight sulphide-rich zones and structural traps that could mark the next wave of discovery.
In a market that continues to reward credible copper stories, Litchfield’s methodical approach stands out. Rather than rushing blindly into drilling, the company appears to be stacking the odds in its favour by using modern geophysics to more accurately guide its next moves.
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