Heavy Rare Earths (ASX:HRE) plans to drill aircore holes in H2 2024 to assess the possibility that a surface uranium anomaly at Gingaba Well may be indicative of a deposit hosted deeper within the palaeochannel.
Recent field work has been investigating an 8km-long airborne radiometric uranium anomaly on its Perenjori Project in the Mid-West region of Western Australia.
The aircore holes will be the first exploration holes drilled into the Perenjori tenements. Additionally, the company plans further Ultrafine soil sampling in an attempt to detect buried uranium mineralisation in parts of the palaeochannel lacking an airborne radiometric anomaly.
The Gingaba Well uranium anomaly is based on an airborne survey flown in 2011 on behalf of the Geological Survey of Western Australia.
The company’s 100% owned Perenjori rare earth and uranium project is located about 185km east-southeast of the port city of Geraldton. It covers an area of 421km2 in three adjacent exploration licences E70/6397, E70/6398 and recent application E59/2905.
The underlying tenure to the project is predominantly unallocated Crown land plus general lease (for grazing purposes) and private farmland. Native title rights over the region are held by the Yamatji Nation with whom Heavy Raren earths has an Indigenous Land Use Agreement.
The exploration model being investigated is a palaeochannel-hosted (also known as calcrete-hosted) uranium-vanadium deposit, similar to those at Langer Heinrich in Namibia and Yeelirrie in Western Australia. Palaeochannel-hosted rare earth deposits are also being targeted.
Heavy Rare Earths notes the geology of the Perenjori area is dominated by quaternary lacustrine sediments of ephemeral salt lakes (playas) as well as calcrete, gypsum deposits and laterite. Minor occurrences of laterite are associated with sparse outcrops of weathered Archaean granitoids.
Minor outcrops of fresh granitoids range from hornblende and biotite-bearing granite and granodiorite to undifferentiated varieties.
Two major palaeochannels are inferred to occur beneath the project area.
Owing to the complete absence of exploration drilling on the company’s tenements, the precise location and depth of these palaeochannels was previously uncertain. The company says in order to define the location and depth of the palaeochannels with greater confidence it undertook passive seismic surveys utilising a Tromino seismometer.
Heavy Rare Earths reports the Gingaba Well radiometric anomaly is associated with the easternmost palaeochannel. There has been only cursory historic work at Gingaba Well with a previous explorer collecting samples of surficial material along two lines with analysis by portable XRF.
Samples reporting high uranium were analysed using a conventional technique and returned uranium between 50pp, and 100ppm.
Eighteen soil samples were collected along the two lines on E70/6397 to verify the historic results and analysed using the Ultrafine method at LabWest Minerals Analysis in Perth.
The new soil sampling confirmed the older work and returned up to 138ppm uranium in the <5 µm soil fraction. The company says this suggests that the technique will be effective elsewhere in the project area.
Heavy Rare Earths is an Australian rare earth exploration and development company. Its key exploration project is Cowalinya, near Esperance in Western Australia. This is a clay-hosted rare earth project with an inferred resource of 159Mt @ 870 ppm TREO and a rare earth composition where 28% are the valuable magnet rare earths and 23% the strategic heavy rare earths.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Heavy Rare Earths
