- 01Maiden RC drilling starts at Meeka East.
- 02Up to 50 holes across 6,000m will test three gold targets.
- 03Copper Hills diamond drilling targeted for Q1 2027.
Mamba Exploration (ASX: M24) has begun maiden reverse circulation drilling at its 70%-owned Meeka East gold project in Western Australia, opening a new test of a substantial gold-anomalous corridor near Meekatharra.
The campaign, which will involve up to 50 holes covering approximately 6,000 metres across three targets, is scheduled to finish by mid-December.
Initial drilling at 140 Foot Well is testing a previously undrilled corridor extending 7 kilometres beneath cover, within a broader trend containing more than 20km of gold-in-soil anomalism.
The explorer is simultaneously preparing diamond drilling at Copper Hills, where historical exploration identified thick copper-bearing zones across a 3.5km corridor.
First Test of Gold Corridor
The 140 Foot Well, New Australian, and Lady Maud targets were delineated through soil sampling and targeting work along the Mulga Bill trend in the Meekatharra greenstone belt.
An earlier fine-fraction soil program collected more than 1,300 samples, identifying anomalous gold across more than 20km of strike on the approximately 152-square-kilometre Meeka East landholding.
Mamba is testing sediment-hosted gold within the Yaloginda Formation, a geological setting that received comparatively limited attention from earlier exploration focused on exposed greenstone-hosted mineralisation.
The project lies along strike from Great Boulder Resources’ (ASX: GBR) Side Well, while Westgold Resources (ASX: WGX) operates the nearby Bluebird and Paddy’s Flat deposits in comparable geological settings.
Topdrill is conducting the two-campaign program following receipt of access and regulatory approvals, with up to $90,000 of support under the WA government’s Exploration Incentive Scheme.
Copper Hills Near Drilling
At Copper Hills, Mamba has obtained program-of-work approval for an initial diamond drilling campaign of up to 10 holes across approximately 2,000m, with work targeted for the March quarter of 2027.
The planned drilling will test the continuity and geometry of copper zones at depth following a review of historical results from 47 holes along the Copper Hills–Lady Alma trend that included widths of more than 20m grading around 1% copper, with some narrower intervals returning higher grades and associated gold mineralisation.
A second permit covering up to 30 additional RC or diamond holes and approximately 7,500m at the northern Lady Alma area has been lodged, while heritage arrangements and drilling contractor discussions continue.
“Within weeks of the placement we have an RC rig turning, sampling crews at Copper Hills and Poison Hills, Omni GeoX appointed and running the programs, and the first Copper Hills Project PoW approved,” executive director Matt Freedman said.
“We want the diamond rig testing for Copper as soon as possible, which at this stage is looking like Q1 2027.”
Poison Hills Sampling
Field activity has extended to Poison Hills, where Mamba has a binding earn-in agreement allowing it to acquire up to an 80% interest in a copper-gold project about 80km southeast of Meekatharra.
The agreement covers an approximately 20km greenstone belt, where historical vendor rock-chip sampling at the Scorcher Vein returned silver grades as high as 2,906 grams per tonne, alongside gold, copper and lead.
A first-pass geochemical program of approximately 790 samples is under way at Poison Hills, complementing about 140 surface samples collected from previously unsampled portions of the Copper Hills corridor.
Mamba has appointed exploration consultancy Omni GeoX to manage the programs after its October placement, bringing its gold and copper exploration work across several targets into concurrent activity.
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