Base Metals: Rumble unveils big zinc-lead discovery, Mount Ridley eyes ‘company-maker’ in frontier Greenland

Rumble Resources (ASX:RTR) has made two, large-scale, flat-lying and shallow zinc-lead discoveries at the Earaheedy project in Western Australia.

The project is a joint venture between Rumble (75 per cent) and Zenith Minerals (ASX:ZNC) (25 per cent).

Results from drilling included 11m grading 4.13 per cent zinc and lead, plus 12.8 grams per tonne (g/t) silver 61m from surface.

Rumble’s technical director is the legendary Brett Keillor, who was involved in the discovery of the multimillion-ounce Marymia and Tropicana gold deposits.

Now he wants to do it again with Rumble.

“Significant widths (11m is the true width) of prospective sandstone with more than 4 per cent zinc and lead (with silver credits) grades over broad areas augurs well for large tonnage shallow deposits along the 20km of strike defined to date,” he says.

Rumble has a new exploration target for Earaheedy of 40 million to 100 million tonnes at 3.5 per cent to 4.5 per cent zinc-lead.

“[This] is based on recent drilling results, geological understanding of the mineralisation geometry, continuity of mineralisation and regional geology, highlighting the potential for Earaheedy to be a world class Tier 1 base metal province,” Keillor says.

Rumble intends to test the exploration target with a ~12-month drilling campaign.

The $35m market cap stock – which is up about 70 per cent over the past 12 months – nudged slightly higher in morning trade.

WA-based explorer Mount Ridley Mines (ASX:MRD) wants to buy Longland Resources, owner of the 3,889sqkm Ryberg nickel-copper-cobalt-palladium-gold project on the east coast of Greenland.

This is true frontier exploration. The underexplored and uninhabited Ryberg project area is 400km from the nearest population centre.

Access is via aircraft from Iceland, helicopter from Greenland and Iceland, or ship. It looks like this:

But the prize could be substantial, the company says.

In 2017, a magnetic survey over the western margin of the licence area revealed three big targets — between 60m and 240m vertical depth — that lie beneath substantial high-grade mineralisation at surface.

“When we first saw the mineralisation at surface my colleagues and I knew that this location was special,” Longland Resources founder Thomas Abraham-James says.

“Only rudimentary exploration activities have occurred prior to Longland’s arrival in 2017.”

If the deal goes through, Abraham-James will become managing director of Mount Ridley Mines, which will seek shareholder approval to change its name back to Longland Resources.

All going well, the deal should be completed by mid-March this year.

The $8m stock – which is up 100 per cent over the past 12 months – was unchanged at 0.3c in morning trade.