Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to work we go
THE DRILL SERGEANT: Companies getting busy on the drill bit this week include, Minotaur Exploration, Mining Projects, and Sheffield Resources.
Drilling for Base Metals in the Gawler Ranges
Minotaur Exploration (ASX: MEP) has a 5,000 metre diamond drill program is underway on Minotaur tenements in the southwest Gawler Ranges mapping the hydrothermal and epithermal alteration and mineralisation systems.
The drilling is part of a collaborative research drill program with the South Australia Department of State Development and Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre and will utilise a range of new real-time data collection technologies.
Targets include basal volcanic structures, new EM conductors and magnetic and AMT anomalies below, within and marginal to the Gawler Range Volcanics where no previous drilling has been undertaken.
Drilling of 10 holes is expected to take approximately four months.
Minotaur Exploration is a partner with the Department of State Development (DSD) and Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre (DET CRC) in their Mineral Systems Drilling Program 2015 (MSDP).
The South Australian government, through the PACE Initiative, has committed $2 million to the MSDP directed entirely to the cost of drilling and testing new models and technologies.
The program aims to identify regional signatures of mineral systems utilising real-time data acquisition including Autosonde and Lab-at-Rig technologies.
Drilling will target the southwest margin of the Gawler Ranges Volcanic (GRV) province on Minotaur’s tenements EL4776 and EL5232, to ground truth new models of:
epithermal gold and silver mineralisation within lowermost GRV units proximal to major faults; and
hydrothermal gold, silver, lead and zinc mineralisation proximal to the Hiltaba Suite granitic pluton.
New Nickel Targets Identified at Roe Hills
Mining Projects Group (ASX: MPJ) has identified several new high-priority bedrock electro-magnetic (EM) conductors at its 100 per cent-owned Roe Hills nickel project east of Kambalda in Western Australia.
The targets will be tested as part of a drilling program of up to 5000m of Reverse Circulation (RC) and diamond drilling which commenced at the Roe Hills project today.
The company is already drilling at the Talc Lake prospect before moving to test numerous other prospects, including the newly identified conductors at Roe 2.
Recent surface geophysical surveys (Moving Loop EM or MLEM) at the Roe 2 prospect have identified five new strong bedrock conductors located in what the company’s technical team considers to be favourable geological and structural positions.
All five targets will be prioritised for drill testing as part of the recently commenced drill program.
Drilling Nickel Target at Red Bull
Sheffield Resources (ASX: SFX) plans to drill-test a new, high-priority nickel-copper target at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Red Bull nickel project, located in the Fraser Range region of Western Australia.
The target at the Stud prospect comprises a bedrock conductor located beneath significant nickel-copper anomalism in shallow aircore drill holes, comprising a coherent anomaly of greater than 0.2 per cent maximum nickel-in-hole over a strike length of 1.8 kilometres.
A combination of diamond core and reverse circulation drilling is planned as an initial test of both the source of the bedrock conductor and IP centres along strike with coincident nickel-copper geochemical anomalism.
Drilling is scheduled to be completed by the end of Q4 2015, with results expected in Q1 2016.
“Although we outlined the Stud target several months ago, we have been focused on finalising PreFeasibility work on our flagship Thunderbird mineral sands project,” Sheffield Resources managing director Bruce McQuitty said.
“With the PFS successfully completed, we now have the opportunity to test this compelling target with a short, cost effective drill program.”