Excitement is brewing at Lycaon’s Bow River nickel-copper project in WA after a high-resolution ground gravity survey outlined a large intrusive unit with similarities to Panoramic’s Savannah nickel mine.
The anomaly, which has a density contrast in line with expectations for ultramafic or mafic peridotite host rock analogous to Savannah, is located about 1.2km west and downdip of nickel and copper mineralisation intersected in historical drilling.
Lycaon Resources (ASX:LYN) will start diamond drilling in late June to test the deeper portion of the Bow River intrusive as well as testing a possible extension to the mineralisation encountered in historical drilling.
This historical drilling had returned assays such as 10m at 1.1% copper and 0.5% nickel (DDH107), 11.5m at 1.2% copper and 0.5% nickel (DDH103) and 3m at 0.97% copper and 1.3% nickel (DDH102).
“Bow River is an extremely compelling nickel-copper magmatic sulphide prospect which ranks as a standout target in the Kimberley outside of Panoramic’s Savannah mine,” technical director Thomas Langley said.
“Despite nickel copper gossans being first discovered in 1965, no drilling has occurred below 200m vertical depth.
“In light of the discovery of the Savannah North ore deposit in 2014, Bow River remains one of the highest ranked nickel copper prospects in the Kimberley yet to be drilled adequately.
“The ground gravity survey recently completed has supported our rationale to test the deeper portion of the Bow River intrusion which will investigate the extent of the mineral system underlying the historical nickel and copper mineralisation recorded to date.”
Bow River and the ground gravity survey
Bow River is located within the Halls Creek Orogen in Western Australia’s East Kimberley region and covers two known nickel-copper-cobalt sulphide prospects – the Salt Lick Creek intrusion and the Bow River intrusion.
Both intrusives are sulphide-bearing and similar in style and setting to Panoramic Resources’ Savannah mine about 60km to the south, which has a resource of about 13Mt at 1.56% nickel.
Notably, the 2014 discovery of Savannah North adjoining the Savannah Mine effectively quadrupled its resource, highlighting the prospectivity of Lycaon’s E80/4955 tenement given its analogous geological setting.
At Bow River, previous exploration has focused on a very small area of the Bow River mafic intrusion where outcropping gossans and anomalous soil geochemistry have been mapped at surface over an area of 900m by 300m.
However, little attention has been paid to the broader intrusive undercover and at depth with the company’s use of more powerful modern day geophysical techniques such as ground gravity surveys to detect density anomalies deeper below surface being the first time such methods have been used.
This article was developed in collaboration with Lycaon Resources, 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.