Impact has kicked off the 2022 exploration program with a major EM survey at the Broken Hill JV project with IGO and the start of maiden drilling at the Doonia gold project.

The electromagnetic survey is part of the recently announced joint venture under which IGO can earn up to 75% in the Broken Hill nickel-copper-platinum group metal project in New South Wales by spending up to $18m.

Meanwhile, Impact Minerals’ (ASX:IPT) maiden reverse circulation drill program at the Doonia project about 30km east of Lefroy’s recent Burns discovery is aimed at testing several soil geochemistry and geophysical targets.

It also marks the start of what the company expects to be its most drill-intensive year since listing.

On the go with IGO

“It is great to have made a start to our on-ground exploration programmes so early in the New Year. IGO Limited have now commenced a major electromagnetic survey at Broken Hill and we thank them for their efforts to get the survey underway under the trying conditions of the COVID-19 outbreaks in New South Wales,” managing director Dr Mike Jones said.

“In addition, the maiden RC drilling programme is underway at Doonia and we are looking forward to testing a number of targets, some of which were identified over 20 years ago and have never been followed up.

“It will be interesting to see what is hidden at depth beneath them given the similarities to the nearby Burns discovery, which was originally identified in the same exploration programme as Doonia by WMC Resources in 1999.”

Big player taking the lead at Broken Hill

IGO’s EM survey is designed to test the entire area covered by tenements EL7390 and EL8234 that make up the Broken Hill project for high-grade massive nickel-copper-PGM deposits including the Moorakai Trend and the Little Broken Hill Gabbro.

The 9km Moorakai Trend is a poorly explored ultramafic to mafic dyke and chonolith complex where previous drilling by Impact at its southern end has returned high grades of nickel-copper-PGM’s in the Platinum Springs area.

No drilling of significance has been carried out along the rest of the trend.

Impact’s drilling across the 7km long intrusion that makes up the Little Broken Hill Gabbro had identified numerous areas of highly anomalous PGM’s in the basal unit to the intrusion over several kilometres.

Chasing a Burns lookalike

At Doonia, the principal target is a 2.5 km by 1 km sized gold-bismuth soil geochemistry anomaly that overlies a cluster of isolated magnetic anomalies in the centre of the project area that may represent targets for intrusion related gold similar to Burns where significant gold-copper-magnetite mineralisation is hosted by a magnetic porphyry intrusion.

Two drill holes have been completed in this area with samples already dispatched to the laboratory with assays expected in late March.

Adding interest, the second hole intersected a pocket of abiogenic gas of unknown thickness and composition at about 100m downhole.

Impact is currently commencing an assessment of the composition of the gas with respect to potential safety issues as well as the possible aerial extent of the pocket and its significance.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Impact Minerals, 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.