Mount Ridley’s got a 50,000m drill program underway in the hunt for REEs

Diamond drilling has begun at Mt Ridley’s flagship project in Western Australia and will twin rare earth intersections at key prospects including Tyrrells, Mia, Butch Fabienne and Vincent.

In this program, Mount Ridley (ASX:MRD) is looking to target and examine rare earth mineralogy within a mineralised footprint of 1,200km to assist with ore genesis models and guide metallurgical test work.

Two aircore rigs will then begin infill and step-out drilling over a total mineralised footprint of 1,200sq km.

Holes to be twinned include 23m at 3,688ppm TREO from 6m, 15m at 2,120ppm TREO from 15m, 47m at 1,521ppm TREO from 33m and 12m at 2,178ppm TREO from 45m.

Drilling 50,000m over next two quarters

“The first of three drilling rigs have arrived at site and will twin around 20 aircore holes that returned strong REE mineralisation,” MRD chairman Peter Christie says.

“Aircore drilling is then scheduled to resume during November with approvals in place to drill up to 50,000m over the next two quarters.”

Ongoing work

Around 409 mostly fresh samples of Proterozoic-aged geological basement have been submitted to Portable Spectral Services to be scanned using a Bruker M4 Tornado microXRF.

MRD says 344 samples have previously been scanned with this technology used to confirm the lithology of basement rocks and REE-containing minerals as well as other mineralisation indicators.

Another 17 composite samples from eight drillholes distributed throughout the project have been submitted to ANSTO for sighter REE extraction work.

Composites were made up from upper and lower zones of mineralisation from a variety of depths throughout the project and results are expected during Q4 2022.

This article was developed in collaboration with Mount Ridley Mines (ASX:MRD), a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.