Special Report: Very high grade platinum group elements (PGE), nickel and copper have been confirmed at Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) Plat Central prospect, part of the Broken Hill project in NSW.

A challenge that all previous explorers faced at the Broken Hill project area was that the high grade mineralisation appeared discontinuous and erratic.

This exploration challenge discouraged extensive exploration of the broader Moorkai Trend, a major 9km long complex of which has very high-grade nickel-copper-PGMs in rock chip samples along its entire length.

It turns out the mineralisation was just misunderstood.

Impact has since identified a powerful geochemical ‘vector’, or signpost, that intensifies towards higher grade nickel-copper-PGEs at Platinum Springs, part of the Broken Hill project.

This is a significant technical breakthrough.

New drilling, guided exclusively by the ratio, has hit a strongly mineralised channel at Plat Central about 25 to 30m wide and between 1 and 7m thick.

Standout results include 1m at 22.7 g/t PGE, 3.3 per cent nickel, 1 per cent copper and 23 g/t silver from 62m depth.

Impact now has the right model to vector in on some large, high-grade deposits.

“It is possible that as the channel is tracked along trend it may open out into a larger trap site in places, and lead to the formation of a much larger body of massive high-grade nickel-copper sulphide,” the company says.

“The basal channel at Plat Central has a geometry similar to many nickel-copper-PGE sulphide deposits formed at the base of mafic to ultramafic intrusive and extrusive rocks globally.”

That includes the world-class Kambalda district in WA.

Here, the channels are ‘ribbon-like’ — often less than 5-7m thick, no more than 50-100m wide but extend for many hundreds of metres to kilometres along the trend of the channel.

It is likely that there are many channels similar to that at Plat Central along the Moorkai Trend. A second channel is already emerging at the Plat East prospect.

 

Tracking the channel

The potential exists to find a significant body of high-grade nickel copper and PGEs at the ‘trap sites’ with further drilling along trend, Impact says.

Drilling is still in progress to track this channel, with a line of drill holes now completed 25m south of the initial line at Plat Central.

Impact’s ratio indicates that “PGE mineralisation is likely to be present over some distance on this line as well”.

A further line of drill holes has now been completed 25 metres to the south of, and up dip from, the initial line at Plat Central.

Drilling is also on-going at Little Broken Hill Gabbro and assays are due shortly for the first drill holes completed there, as well as for Red Hill and Dora East.

 

 

 

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.