Resources Top 5: Promising lithium targets and a ‘remarkable’ gold discovery

Legacy Minerals up on huge volumes after reporting a “remarkable discovery” at Bauloora gold project
Octava Minerals, Omnia Metals unearth fresh hard rock lithium targets at their respective projects
Petratherm defines “continuous blanket” of high-grade, +1000ppm REE mineralisation starting from shallow depths

Here are the biggest small cap resources winners in early trade, Wednesday February 15.

LEGACY MINERALS (ASX:LGM)

LGM is up on volume after reporting a “remarkable discovery” at its Bauloora gold project in NSW.

Maiden drilling has consistently hit low-sulphidation epithermal veins along 1.5km strike at the Mee Mar prospect, including 16m (estimated true width ~12m) of veins parallel to the main Mee Mar prospect.

This is the largest intercept to date at Bauloora, LGM says. Mineralisation remains open in all directions.

Alteration, veins, and breccia do not directly translate to gold-silver grade.

However, the presence of the broad down-hole width intervals — as well as extensive lead-zinc sulphides — is a very exciting outcome, LGM boss Christopher Byrne says.

“This project’s scale is demonstrated by the fact that every diamond drill hole testing the strike of the Mee Mar vein intercepted epithermal veins and breccia – delivering a continuous strike of 1,500m which remains open to the north, south and at depth,” Byrne says.

“The Bauloora project has the potential to be a very large gold-silver epithermal system and presents a great opportunity to deliver shareholder value through discovery.”

Assay results will start flowing through in the months ahead.

The $10m capped stock is flat year-to-date. It had $2.7m in the bank at the end of December.

PETRATHERM (ASX:PTR)

More promising drilling results, this time from South Aussie rare earths explorer PTR.

Drilling at Meteor — part of the Comet project in the mineral-rich Gawler Craton — has defined “a continuous blanket” of high-grade, +1000ppm REE mineralisation starting from shallow depths (3-6m), and over substantial vertical thicknesses downhole (up to 38m).

Highlights include 24m @ 1,594ppm TREO & 34ppm Sc2O3 from 6m, inc. 6m @ 2,495ppm TREO & 42ppm Sc2O3.

Mineralisation remains open, the company says, and there is also “significant potential for additional discoveries”.

PTR has now started all important metallurgical trials to test whether it can build an operation using a using simple heap leach extraction process.

“The mineralisation starts at just a few metres below surface in the soft weathering profile allowing the potential for low-cost free dig mining,” PTR CEO Peter Reid says.

“The shallow clay hosted mineralisation has formed over a layered mafic complex and potential remains for additional rare earths in the basement rock below.

“The company intends to advance the high-quality emerging Meteor prospect and in parallel extend exploration out into new areas with currently only 10% of the project area tested.”

The $20m capped stock is up 30% year-to-date. It had $3.7m in the bank at the end of December.

KOONENBERRY GOLD (ASX:KNB)

(Up on no news)

KNB’s focus is its namesake gold project in NSW, where a maiden drill program was completed last quarter at the Lucky Sevens prospect.

The 11-hole, 2,258m program targeted 400m of the 4km long gold-in-soil anomaly, where historical drilling and costeaning has returned numbers like 5m @25.1g/t Au from 0m.

However, the results were underwhelming, with a peak result of 2m @ 0.13g/t gold.

“These drill results have not explained the extensive surface gold anomaly at Lucky Sevens,” the company says.

“[This] is interpreted to reflect the structural complexity of the local geology, where any mineralised veins may be discontinuous (such as tension gash or boudinage style) and could have been missed by the modest first-pass program.

“Alternatively, higher grade mineralisation could be focused elsewhere along the 4km of strike at Lucky Sevens.”

Even if Lucky Sevens turns out to be a dud, there are an abundance of targets waiting to be tested across the broader project area.

KNB says preparations are advanced for first ever drilling campaigns at the Atlantis, Four Queens, and Vegas prospects in H2.

The $4.5m capped stock is flat year-to-date. It had $2.9m in the bank at the end of December.

OCTAVA MINERALS (ASX:OCT)

The recently listed WA explorer has identified a new lithium target at the Talga project called Nimerry, ~10km as the crow flies from Global Lithium’s (ASX:GL1) 18Mt Archer deposit in the Pilbara.

There are multiple peggies at Nimerry, OCT says, with the largest identified being ~30m in width and over 60m in length.

Early indications are that Nimerry could be similar in size to the company’s nearby Pinnacle Well prospect, which stands at 1.5sqkm.

Rock samples are in the lab for analysis, with results expected by the end of the month.

OCT says drill testing of priority lithium targets is planned immediately after the conclusion of the wet season in Q2.

The $4.5m capped stock is flat year-to-date. It had $4.1m in the bank at the end of December.

OMNIA METALS (ASX:OM1)

Another early-stage lithium target identified, this time from minnow OM1 at the soon-to-be-acquired 540sqkm Lac des Montagnes tenement package in Quebec, Canada.

During the due diligence process the explorer has stumbled upon a 2.3km long, 440m wide spodumene target called Senay 5.

All up, +40 pegmatite granites have been mapped within the project area, seven of which have been identified by the Quebec Govt as a “high priority and highly prospective to be spodumene hosting”.

There are striking geological similarities here with the world class Wabouchi lithium deposit (36.7Mt @ 1.16% Li2O), which is 38km along strike from the Senay project.

“We know the Lac Des Montagnes project has the right geology to host world-class lithium deposits, so we are excited by the outcomes of the early targeting work that has been completed,” OM1 boss James Warren says.

“The company will continue to methodically review all the available data across this extensive land package with a view to commence field testing as soon as practicably possible.”

“We are excited to begin the discovery journey on this exciting belt-scale exploration opportunity with one of the largest land packages in the exciting James Bay Area for a junior on the ASX.”

The $6.5m capped stock is up 50% year-to-date. It had $2.9m in the bank at the end of December.