Golden Deeps Ltd (ASX: GED) is excited to announce the commencement of a diamond drilling program aimed at testing a series of porphyry and volcanic-hosted copper-gold targets at its wholly-owned Havilah Project, located in the Lachlan Fold Belt Copper-Gold Province in central New South Wales.

Golden Deeps Ltd plans to conduct five to ten diamond drilling holes, totaling between 1,260m and 2,500m, to explore two distinct copper-gold target zones at the Havilah Project. The initial three holes will target two areas of surface copper mineralization at the Hazelbrook and Hazelbrook North prospects, where significant soil anomalies have been identified and rock chip samples have shown values over 1% Cu, accompanied by visible copper mineralization (malachite and chalcopyrite) within the Ordovician Sofala Volcanics. Up to seven additional holes will be drilled to test strong sub-surface IP chargeability anomalies, which are potential targets for copper and gold sulphide mineralization within the Sofala Volcanics, located in the contact zone of the Aaron’s Pass granite.

The most substantial sub-surface IP chargeability-sulphide targets are located at the northern end of the survey, where values exceed 55 millivolts per volt (mV/V) compared to a background of less than 10 mV/V. Additionally, two other significant IP anomalies are found to the south within the same corridor, including one anomaly that aligns with a resistive gravity low, which may indicate a porphyry intrusion related to the Aaron’s Pass Granite situated to the west of the prospect.

The northeast-trending zone of surface copper mineralization at the Hazelbrook prospect is projected to intersect with the north-south IP anomaly corridor. At this intersection, there is a gap in the IP anomaly, suggesting that copper mineralization has essentially "leaked" up the northeast-trending structure, connecting to the intrusion to the west and at depth.

The Havilah Project, under granted Exploration Licence (EL8936), is situated within the eastern Lachlan Fold Belt near Mudgee in central NSW. The Company aims to explore porphyry and volcanic-hosted copper-gold mineralization within a belt of Ordovician-age Sofala volcanic rocks in the Rockley-Gulgong Volcanic Belt. This belt is part of the Macquarie Arc in the Lachlan Fold Belt, a renowned geological province home to world-class copper-gold deposits such as Cadia-Ridgeway and North Parkes.

The Havilah tenement covers a region of magnetic Ordovician Sofala Volcanics close to the northeastern boundary of the Aaron’s Pass Granite. Mineralization within this magnetic aureole is present at the historical Milfor and Cheshire copper workings, which are hosted by altered Sofala Volcanics containing pyrite and chalcopyrite (copper sulfide). There are notable stream sediment copper anomalies along the northeastern edge of the Aaron’s Pass batholith, which is exposed just southwest of the Havilah tenement. This granitic intrusion is associated with porphyry Mo-W-Cu mineralization at the Mt Pleasant Prospect, located west of the Havilah tenement.