Desert Metals Looks to be onto the Next Major Rare Earth Find

Shares in DM1 have soared 25% this morning after follow-up drilling outlined an emerging rare earths system at its Innouendy project in Western Australia.

Initial XRF and visual observations – while no replacement for laboratory analysis – are encouraging and suggest that an extensive, near surface REE system hosted in clay is present.

This is particularly encouraging for Desert Metals (ASX:DM1) as the clays which host the mineralisation have been intersected up to a thickness of 80m in some parts.

Step out drilling traverses across 20km of strike length have intersected both thick clays and large volumes of mafic and ultramafic rock though lab analysis will be required to determine whether these units host significant mineralisation.

Previous test work using weak acid digest had returned excellent rare earth element recoveries of more than 80% from the high-grade zones, indicating that extraction will be relatively simple and hence have lower Capex.

The 12,745m aircore and reverse circulation drill program was designed to follow up on previous high-grade intercepts of up to 20m grading 2,139ppm total rare earth oxides including 4m at 4,376ppm TREO.

Should these high grades be repeated over significant downhole thickness and areal extent, analysis from the current drilling program will be used to help define a resource.

Extensive drilling

The aircore drilling included a number regional reconnaissance traverses to test the extent of nickel prospective ultramafic/mafic rocks under cover while RC drilling was focused on following up on recent promising nickel and platinum group element intercepts.

Desert Metals also intends to carry downhole electromagnetic (DHEM) surveying in holes drilled at the Belele and Dingo Pass nickel-copper sulphide projects in the next couple of weeks.

Drilling of off-hole conductors will follow once the DHEM has been completed.

This article was developed in collaboration with Desert Metals, 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.