The Collaborative Exploration Initiative issued grants of up to $200,000 per project to assist with either frontier exploration or innovative exploration concepts over 16 projects, with the ultimate aim of increasing exploration investment in Queensland.
The latest round of grants will support projects near Chillagoe, Georgetown, Mount Isa, Townsville, and Proserpine.
Aeon Metals was granted almost $200,000 to complete an airborne electromagnetic survey over its flagship Walford Creek project, with the aim of defining targets away from its existing resources, while some $97,000 has been granted to conduct a ground gravity survey at North Sugarbag, within its Mt Isa West project.
The company plans to complete the works prior to its 2022 drilling season.
Managing director Dr Fred Hess said the company's last round of magnetic and gravity surveys at Walford Creek had highlighted unrecognised target areas, so new surveys could help refine its targeting of the prospective units, and better image the Fish River Fault.
He said Mt Isa West, 60km from Mt Isa, has previously been overshadowed by Walford Creek, but the Sugarbag prospect has potential for the Gunpowder formation to contain sediment-hosted copper mineralisation given its proximity to world class deposits.
Red Fox Resources, which is 40% owned by ASX-listed minnow Chase Mining Corporation, scored two grants to complete RC drilling to help it better understand the geology of its Ernest Henry West copper project, and conduct diamond drilling is planned at the Eveleigh zinc project, 45km east of Georgetown, to help support further programs.
It will spend $200,000 toward six diamond holes at Eveleigh to test for Broken Hill-type/Cannington-style lead-zinc-silver mineralisation, and $120,000 to drill three RC holes targeting a magnetic anomaly interpreted as an iron-oxide copper gold prospect, similar to the E1 deposit.
Native Mineral Resources was granted $200,000 towards the acquisition of a 30,349 line-kilometre airborne survey of its Palmerville copper-gold project it believes will be the first project-scale survey ever flown over the geologically complex, mineral-rich, but discovery-poor northern extent of the Chillagoe Formation.
Townsville-focused Sunshine Gold also scored two grants, for $126,194, to conduct a geophysical survey of the Wilburs Hill-Smiths target, within its Ravenswood West project, and assay costs for a soil sampling program at Elphinstone Creek.
Wilburs Hill was described as a new geochemical prospect with similarities to the nearby 3.5 million ounce Mt Leyshon and 1Moz Mt Wright gold mines, while first pass soil sampling and mapping at Elphinstone Creek has previously confirmed potential for rare earth elements and gold for follow-up work.
Minotaur Exploration, which is in the midst of a corporate transaction with Andromeda Metals, has gained funding to test a potential zoned mineral system that may be undetectable using conventional geophysical techniques, 65km south-east of Cloncurry.
ASX-listed Great Southern Mining has been funded to perform an X-ray analysis of surface and drill core samples to better understand alteration and fluid pathways from multiple sites within its Edinburgh Park project, 115km south-east of Townsville and just 5km from Navarre Minerals' Mt Carlton mine.
The 1000sq.km area has been described by the company as historically underexplored, especially since Mt Carlton's discovery, but with potential for porphyry copper-molybdenum, Intrusive-related gold, and epithermal gold-silver deposits.
Hammer Metals' Mt Dockerell Mining will test a magnetic anomaly under the Mount Philip haematite deposit, east of Mt Isa, with a 500m deep hole.
The remaining grants were to privately-run concerns.
The new owner of the troubled Rocklands copper mine, Mount Cuthbert Resources, will trial a non-conventional survey configuration to determine if mineralised bodies have previously been undetected with conventional geophysics, 100km north-east of Mount Isa.
It will also undertake a high-resolution ground gravity survey over known mineralisation and nearby prospective areas, as part of its mission to restart copper production.
Perth-based Yarraman Metals wants to undertake a soil geochemical survey to evaluate the performance of field-based X-ray analysis compared to laboratory analysis near Georgetown.
Lynd Resources is looking to drill a 500m deep diamond hole to test a concealed, electromagnetic anomaly prospective for vein-hosted mineralisation near Croydon.
Lynd is owned by Melbourne-based prospect generation and private equity group Resource Venture Fund. It has a strategic exploration alliance with South32.
West of Mt Isa, Toowoomba-based Aozora wants to drill two targets to learn more about the geology, structures, and potential deposit type at Templeton East.
Finally, on the Cape York Peninsula, New Zealand businessman Duncan Hardie's Munuku aims to fly a geophysical survey targeting identified anomalies related to the George fault.
Queensland resources minister Scott Stewart said the CEI grants, part of the wider $23 million New Economy Minerals Initiative, are aimed primarily at uncovering "new economy minerals" for use in the global energy transition, focusing on exploration in frontier or greenfield areas, or for trialling innovative exploration techniques.
The Queensland Resources Council says it has been almost 30 years since the state's last major minerals discovery, the Ernest Henry copper mine near Cloncurry.
The CEI is managed by the Geological Survey of Queensland.
