Encounter kicks off gravity survey at its West Arunta project ahead of copper and rare earths drilling this month

Encounter Resources has commenced a project wide Falcon airborne gravity survey at its Aileron copper-gold-REE project in the red hot West Arunta region of WA.

The 3,300 line km survey will extend detailed gravity coverage across the 100km wide project, targeting Iron Oxide Copper-Gold (IOCG) style copper, similar to OZ Minerals’ (ASX:OZL) Prominent Hill copper-gold deposit, along with carbonatite hosted REE – niobium mineralisation, like WA1 Resources (ASX:WA1) recently discovered right next door to Encounter in the West Arunta region.

Diamond drilling is also planned to commence in the first week of May to test targets defined in prior geophysical surveys.

Gravity anomalies are the key

The company’s diamond drilling will target three anomalies identified during major gravity, magnetics, and radiometric surveys during 2021, and 2022.

Encounter Resources (ASX:ENR) MD Will Robinson said that modern geophysics is revealing exceptional targets in the emerging critical minerals province and that he is excited to see what this major new gravity dataset reveals.

“The Falcon airborne system was developed to rapidly acquire gravity data over regions prospective for orebodies associated with density anomalies, like the Olympic Dam IOCG deposit in South Australia,” he said.

“Gravity anomalies in the Arunta region also appear to have a high success rate identifying mineralised carbonatites.

“Accordingly, this project wide survey will be a fundamental dataset for the targeting of IOCG and carbonatite-hosted rare earth deposits in the West Arunta.”

Geophysics has been a key ingredient to the exploration success of WA1 Resources in the West Arunta including exceptional new niobium-rare earth drill results released earlier this week.

This article was developed in collaboration with Encounter Resources Limited, 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.