OD6 Metals (ASX:OD6) has discovered a new ‘high-grade’ fluorspar zone at North Horseshoe Canyon (NHC), potentially linking its Horseshoe and Big Jim targets across a 1.5km corridor at the Quinn Fluorspar Project in Nevada, US.
Rock-chip sampling at NHC returned assays of up to 60% calcium fluoride (CaF2), with additional results of 57.3%, 51%, 21.4%, and 18.5% CaF2. A sample 150m south of NHC returned the peak 60% result, along strike from Horseshoe.
Mineralisation outcrops over 100m of strike at NHC and remains open beneath cover. Geological interpretation indicates the structure may continue about 750m north-east beneath the lithocap towards Big Jim.
CEO and Managing Director Brett Hazelden says the discovery provides a ‘potential missing link’ between two of Quinn’s priority targets.
“North Horseshoe Canyon is a strategically important discovery because of where it sits and what it tells us about the wider mineralised system,” Hazelden notes.
“While the rock-chip assays of up to 60% CaF2 are impressive, their real significance is the identification of high-grade fluorspar in the intervening ground between Horseshoe and Big Jim, where our geological targeting model indicated it could occur.”
The 1.5km corridor
The Saw Mill Thrust outcrops in only two places — Big Jim and NHC — with ‘high-grade’ mineralisation at both, making the full thrust corridor between Horseshoe and Big Jim/Spar a 1.5km target area. A felsic intrusive with anomalous fluorine may represent a heat and fluid source.
Hazelden says drilling will determine whether the mineralised zones connect and establish their thickness and grade beneath cover.
“Rather than viewing these as isolated occurrences, we now have stronger geological evidence supporting an approximately 1.5km prospective corridor from Horseshoe through North Horseshoe Canyon to Big Jim and Spar,” Hazelden adds.
The company plans drilling to target west-dipping lodes beneath and west of the NHC outcrop, the continuation beneath the lithocap between NHC and Big Jim, and the corridor between Horseshoe and NHC.
Quinn covers 226 mining claims across about 1,890 hectares and contains more than 20 fluorspar occurrences. Fluorspar is a critical mineral in the US, which is 100% net import reliant, with more than 60% of global supply sourced from China.
OD6 Metals is an Australian critical minerals explorer whose portfolio also includes the Splinter Rock Rare Earth Project in Western Australia and the Gulf Creek Copper-Zinc Project in New South Wales.
Write to JC Villarba at Mining.com.au
Main image: OD6 Metals
