A spate of success from Chalice Gold Mines, Legend Mining, and now St George suggests that WA nickel exploration could be hitting a purple patch.

Nickel was back in the spotlight thanks to Chalice’s (ASX:CHN) virgin Julimar discovery near Perth, announced March 23.

Then Legend Mining (ASX:LEG), which had announced a new “Nova-style” discovery in the Fraser Range in December, hit three massive sulphide intercepts in a maiden diamond drill hole.

These stocks bucked the trend in a gloomy market, shooting up +120 per cent and +70 per cent respectively in the news.

 

Now St George Mining (ASX:SGQ) — which has already unearthed high-grade, shallow nickel-copper sulphides across more than 5.5km of the so-called ‘Cathedrals Belt’ — reckons a Magnetotelluric (MT) survey has mapped new, very large ‘conductive’ features to depths of more that 3km from surface.

St George exec chairman John Prineas says these deeper targets are validation of the large-scale potential at the Cathedrals Belt.

“The Cathedrals Belt is an ‘intrusive’ mineral system,” he told Stockhead.

“These types of systems typically have larger deposits at depth, like the Raglan deposit in Canada with more than 1.5 million tonnes of contained nickel and the Eagle deposit in Michigan.

“The MT survey has identified the deep, mantle tapping faults that were the conduits for the nickel sulphides we are seeing near surface.

“That’s indicating a large mineral system with potential for significant mineralisation at depth.”

So far, St George has an incredible 100 per cent hit rate with EM (electromagnetics) – every single conductor it picks up ends up being nickel sulphide mineralisation. That doesn’t normally happen.

But the EM has been unable to see past ~300m from surface, which is an issue that other projects also have, including IGO (ASX:IGO) at Nova-Bollinger.

“What the MT survey has been able to do is map the conductive stratigraphy at depth to 3,000m from surface,” Prineas says.

While the MT survey conductive features are not necessarily the same as EM conductors, St George is optimistic that the great hit rate will continue.

“At the Investigators prospect, data from the MT survey has clearly shown a conductive response that is coincident with the Investigators ultramafic, where extensive high-grade mineralisation has already been discovered from near surface to more than 250m below surface,” Prineas says.

“That tells us that the MT survey is identifying mineralisation.”

This shows new conductivity data over the ‘Investigators’ prospect. The yellow/green areas are indicative of potentially large targets deeper down:

And that is why the company and its investors are excited by these early stage results. The stock was up +22 per cent in early trade.

The company will now revise its upcoming drilling program to test these deeper targets.

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