Thor Energy Review Highlights High-Grade Rare Earths at Alford East
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Thor Energy (ASX: THR) has uncovered rare earth element (REE) drill results from a review of the previously announced 2021 copper and gold drilling at the company’s Alford East project in South Australia.
Thor Energy completed a REE review that has revealed eight out of nine of the 2021 diamond drill holes intersected wide zones of highly enriched REEs in kaolin altered, copper rich oxide zones of IOCG style mineralisation.
The company explained the mineralisation is open over an approx. five kilometres trend due there having not been REE assays carried out on historical drilling at Alford East, to the best of its knowledge.
REE drill intercepts (>500ppm TREO) from the review include:
21AED005
36.7 metres at 1568ppm (0.16%) total rare earth oxide (TREO) and 1.2 per cent copper from 6.3m, including 11.8m at 2095 ppm (0.21%) TREO and 1.2 per cent copper from 10m, and 11m at 2088ppm (0.21%) TREO and 0.8 per cent copper from 47m, Including 2m at 5042ppm (0.5%) TREO from 47m;
21AED002
11.6m at 1699ppm (0.17%) TREO and 0.26 per cent copper from 30.4m including 6.1m at 2262ppm (0.22%) TREO from 34m; and
21AED001
16.8m at 1721ppm (0.17%) TREO and 0.5 per cent copper from 91.4m.
Buoyed by the results, Thor now has a full geochemical review of the historic drilling underway to access the lateral extent of the REE potential within the Alford Copper Belt, to generate drill targets and to fully assess the economic potential of this discovery.
“I am absolutely delighted to report these thick zones of shallow, high-grade REE intercepts, found to be associated with oxide copper-gold mineralisation at the Alford East project,” Thor Energy managing director Nicole Galloway Warland said in the company’s ASX announcement.
“This batch of results compares very favourably in terms of depth, thickness and grade to its peer group in the fledgling Australian REE sector.
“Importantly, this discovery has significant potential to be a large deposit based on the approx. five kilometres lateral extent of the north-south trending, structurally controlled troughs hosting IOCG mineralisation.
“It is promising that aside from the nine 2021 diamond drill holes reported today, none of the other historic drilling at Alford East is known to have ever been assayed for REE content.
“Priority drill program design is underway in conjunction with detailed geochemical reviews of the historic drilling, along with further studies on the nature of the REE mineralisation encountered to date.”
TO READ THE FULL ANNOUNCEMENT: CLICK HERE