Special Report: Impact has increased its footprint in an emerging nickel-copper-platinum group metals province in Western Australia’s Wheatbelt region.

The move was driven by leading miner Anglo American lodging exploration licence applications covering about 10,130sqkm in the area the same afternoon that the company announced its application for its initial five tenements that make up the Arkun project.

Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) managing director Dr Mike Jones says the arrival of Anglo, whose tenements surround three sides of the Arkun project, is a very positive endorsement of the company’s exploration targeting criteria and the emerging nickel-copper-PGE province in this part of WA thanks to the recent Julimar and Yarawindah discoveries.

“In addition we think it is also a direct recognition of the importance of the proposed mobile belt in this part of the state, a belt we have recently understood to be explored for diamonds in the past, and that we interpret to be a deep structure that may have tapped the mantle and allowed nickel-copper and platinum group metals to migrate into the crust, Dr Jones added.

“Such deep structures are critical components to the formation of major deposits like Nova-Bollinger and the recent discovery at Mawson.

“Impact is currently completing reconnaissance work along roads and tracks to move this exciting project forward before grant whilst waiting for statutory drilling approvals at our priority nickel-copper-PGE project at Broken Hill.”

Impact Minerals and Anglo American plc exploration licence applications Pic: Supplied

The three new tenement applications cover an area of 1,050sqkm, taking the total ground under application up to 1,900sqkm.

Impact has started reconnaissance work including field checking and rock chip sampling along gazetted roads and tracks to help accelerate exploration prior to grant of the tenements, which could take about five months.

Additionally, an interpretation of the surface geology will be completed to assess the effectiveness of the previous soil geochemistry surveys to determine the best surface geochemistry technique for the area.

Arkun is centred between the towns of York and Corrigin about 130km east of Perth and was first identified as an area of anomalous nickel-copper-gold anomalies in publicly available regional geochemistry data sets.

While the area is generally not recognised in many regional geology maps, the company says it is self-evident in the magnetic data and may mark an ancient terrane boundary or proto-craton margin.

 

This story was developed in collaboration with Impact Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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