Impact has identified high priority targets for a range of battery and strategic metals at its aptly-named Jumbo joint venture project in Western Australia’s southwest.
Soil geochemistry work has highlighted the potential of the project to host many of the in-demand metals such as nickel-copper-platinum group elements, lithium-caseium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatites, rare earth elements and rubidium.
And notably, Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) is looking at soil anomalies for all metal groups occurring across significant areas of at least several hundred metres along the limited reconnaissance soil geochemistry traverses.
The high success rate of anomaly identification also serves to validate the company’s targeting methodology.
Vastly underexplored
“These soil results further confirm to us that Impact has secured a large and very prospective part of the emerging mineral province of south west Western Australia which already contains the recent Julimar Ni-Cu-PGM discovery and the Greenbushes lithium-tantalum mine, both world-class deposits,” managing director Dr Mike Jones said.
“The region is clearly vastly under-explored and has great potential for the discovery of deposits covering a wide range of battery and strategic metals.
“We are particularly excited about the elevated rare earth element and rubidium anomalies, given the recent positive price action in these markets.”
He added that together with Arkun, which is located immediately to the east, the new targets have exceeded the company’s expectations and a considerable amount of follow-up work would be required over the combined area.
Jumbo project and soil geochemistry
Impact is earning up to 80% of the 360sqkm Jumbo project by free-carrying Southern Sky Energy to a decision to mine.
It contains many of the same geological features and extensions of the same structures as those that are considered prospective at the 1,900sqkm Arkun project and looks very much like a natural addition to the company’s large strategic ground holding in this most under-explored corner of Western Australia.
The soil geochemistry survey was limited to one major access road across the project area and samples were taken mostly at about 100 metre spacings at the side of the road over a distance of about 30km.
Despite this, the survey identified three new nickel-copper-PGE targets – the easternmost of which has a significant gold-dominant response and covers an area of several hundred metres across trend, two LCT targets that are at least a few hundred metres wide and three REE targets.
The entire soil geochemistry traverse also stands out as being elevated in rubidium when compared with Arkun.
As a result, Impact suggested that the Jumbo area may be underlain by extensive areas of granitoid and pegmatite rocks that are enriched in REE and rubidium.
Next steps
Impact plans to start first pass follow-up field checking and sampling in the June quarter to prioritise areas for more detailed soil geochemistry and ground geophysics that will extend away from the roads and into the surrounding paddocks.
This work will dovetail with continuing on-ground follow up work at Arkun.
Land access negotiations are currently underway to facilitate exploration in the paddocks.
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.