Bruce's Copper prospect, Huckitta Station, Central Desert Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Bruce's Copper prospect	Prospect
Huckitta Station	- not defined -
Central Desert Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

Bruce's Copper prospect is approximately 6 kilometres north of Ilpere/Prosser Bore, halfway between the Plenty and Marshall rivers. A track follows the fence line north of Prosser Bore marking the Huckitta and old Jinka stations, with the prospect trending east-west 2 kilometres either side of the track. It is situated in a flat plain, with limited outcrop.

The prospect is located on either side of the boundary fence between Jinka and Huckitta Stations between the Marshall and Plenty Rivers.

Roebuck Resources studied the site in 1995, uncovering anomalous gold, copper and cobalt, in gossanous quartz outcrops, in a folded ruptured east-west fault, cutting the Arunta calc-silicate and gneissic rock. Mineralisation was across a 1-3 metre wide zone, traced west, then south-west for one kilometre, as a series of discontinuous quartz sub-crops and float areas.

John Baxter, Tom Reilly, and Alan Lockett of Low Ecol Services, on behalf of Olympia Resources Ltd, then conducted a detailed analysis of what is a relatively minor prospect in 2004. This included many photographs of the site not normally included in such reports.

They describe three generations of shear zones at the site. The oldest (1) is high metamorphic grade ductile shearing, trending east, creating boudins, but no quartz segregation. (2) East-west, south dipping shears, partly filled by brecciated quartz veins, including fragments of mica schist, sulphidic sediments, calc-silicate rock, and massive sulphides, with left hand compression jogs. (3) Youngest shallow north dipping brittle faults, with slickensides, which re-mobilised some of the sulphide mineralisation, particularly pyrite, with reverse and lateral movement of the faults.

There are three types of mineralisation at the prospect. (1) Gossanous sulphidic but copper poor breccia veins associated with type 2 quartz veins. (2) Gossanous Cu rich veins in type 2 shears. (3) Pyritic veins that may relate to slide reverse movement in type 3 fault planes.

The quartz sulphidic type 2 veining is discontinuous, boudinaged, and compositionally variable, but often contain gold. There are four types of quartz veins. (1) Gossanous quartz breccia. (2) Drusy quartz veins. (3) Quartz veins with gossan along joints. (4) Quartz veins with mica schist and/or calc-silicate fragments.

The type 3 veining vary from shallow dipping thin gossanous veins along fault planes, to steeply dipping quartz pyrite veins, with very little deformation, and none showing gold.

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