Junior explorer Power Minerals (ASX:PNN) has reported another round of ‘high-grade’ rare earths drilling results from the Dickson Well target within its Eyre Peninsula Project in South Australia.
The $13.1 million market capitalisation company says it’s now planning to complete geophysical modelling for the area to define targets for its next phase of drilling.
One of the top results from Power’s latest program comes from drillhole PKD23-139, which returned 3m @ 5,025 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO) from 43m. This included 1,473 parts per million magnet rare earth oxides (MREO), which account for about 28.9% of the overall TREO grade.
However, Power says when screening this result to -5 microns, the interval returned 3m @ 10,253ppm TREO, including 3,078ppm MREO.
Moreover, a second hit in the hole of 1m @ 7,114ppm TREO and 2,204ppm MREO, when screened to -53 microns, returned 14,152ppm TREO including 4,412ppm MREO from 44m.
Power Managing Director Mena Habib says these ‘exciting’ results demonstrate the potential for rare earths mineralisation in the Dickson Well area.
“These results are comparable and even exceed those reported by other explorers and developers from clay-hosted REE deposits in Brazil, as well as those commonly reported from China.
There is potential for further exploration at Dickson Well, and on the basis that our initial drilling was completed on 400m spacing, closer-spaced drilling will be required to firm up our understanding of the mineralisation.”
“These results are comparable and even exceed those reported by other explorers and developers from clay-hosted REE deposits in Brazil, as well as those commonly reported from China”
The company says additional material remains available from the existing drillholes at the Dickson Well target, which the company will use to complete further testing.
This work will include ionic leach tests on selected samples to help determine the amount of rare earth elements in an adsorbed ionic phase, or secondary mineral phase, or an unaltered resistive phase.
Power says drilling results so far suggest there are ‘low levels of contaminants’ like uranium and thorium in the Dickson Well area. All up, the company has analysed 157 drill samples from the target.
The company is exploring its Eyre Peninsula Project for kaolin-halloysite material, and it was during a regional halloysite exploration campaign the Power discovered the Dickson Well rare earths occurrence.
Write to Joshua Smith at Mining.com.au
Images: Power Minerals
