Impact Minerals secures government cash to drill Caligula copper target

Impact Minerals secures $180,000 from WA to drill Caligula copper target
Data from drilling will add to knowledge of Impact’s underexplored Arkun project
XRF data from Hyperion REE drilling to be used to select samples for assaying

Special Report: Impact Minerals has received a vote of confidence in the planned drilling of the Caligula copper target at its Arkun project with the WA government providing financial support.

The state government will provide co-funding for half the cost of drilling the target up to a cap of $180,000 under its Exploration Incentive Scheme.

The 5km by 2km copper target is about 15km from the Hyperion rare earths anomaly and was identified by Impact Minerals’ (ASX:IPT) soil geochemistry work and Mobile Magneto-Telluric (MMT) data.

The copper is associated with anomalous silver and cobalt and, in the southern part of the anomaly, also has a strong association with bismuth, tellurium and lesser molybdenum.

It is one of 17 broad areas of interest identified at the 2000km² Arkun project, which is surrounded by notable projects including Newmont’s world-class porphyry gold-copper deposit at Boddington and Caravel Minerals (ASX:CVV) very large porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit at Calingiri.

ASX IPT Impact Minerals — 3D view of the bedrock geology of the Caligula area. Pic: Impact Minerals

Caligula drilling to lift the veil on poorly explored area

The EIS award highlights the company’s belief that the MMT conductors at Caligula may represent disseminated to massive sulphides.

“This award validates our exploration programmes at Arkun over the past few years,” managing director Dr Mike Jones said.

“Caligula is one of many geochemical and geophysical targets we have at the project and so the information we will gain from the proposed drill programme will add immensely to our knowledge of this poorly exposed and poorly explored area.

“We will now start the statutory approvals process for the drilling.

“We have just completed our maiden drill programme at Hyperion to test for rare earth elements and are interpreting the handheld XRF data to select samples for assaying, and we are looking forward to those results.”

IPT has completed infill and extensional soil geochemistry surveys to help define specific drill targets with assays due this quarter.

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.