Critical minerals explorer Summit Minerals has rather dramatically increased the footprint of its Stallion rare earths project east of Kalgoorlie.
It has applied for a large exploration licence which envelops its existing tenement that will increase its landholding by a whopping 720% to 162.19km2.
This allows Summit Minerals (ASX:SUM) to capture the full extents of the two confining “hot granites” located adjacent to a REE-enriched palaeochannel where historical drilling has returned results of up to 2,666 parts per million (ppm) partial rare earth oxides (pREO), as assaying had only test for cerium, lanthanum, scandium, and yttrium.
There is significant potential here as this future assaying could capture the quantities of the remaining 13 REEs including valuable magnet REEs such as neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium.
“The new application captures the outcropping extents of the same rare-earth enriched granite that underlies the mineralised Stallion palaeochannel,” managing director Jonathan King said.
“The company sees the proof-of-concept drilling at Stallion, scheduled for early next month, as an opportunity to validate its views and continue to advance its exploration program at the project when the application is granted.”
Drilling of up to 16 reverse circulation holes totalling 1,000m is scheduled to begin by October to test the palaeochannel and “hot granites” for REE mineralisation.
Hot granites could point the way to REEs
Hot granites get their name from the robust radiometric signature they carry due to being enriched in the radioactive metal’s uranium, thorium, and potassium, which are readily identifiable through radiometric imagery.
This can assist with the identification of the target rocks and help with the mapping of their distribution, which could in turn lead to finding REEs as they are commonly associated with uranium and thorium through the phosphate minerals, apatite and monazite.
Summit has previously noted that elevated levels of phosphorus coincide with anomalous REEs at Stallion and that the source of phosphorus is thought to be either apatite or monazite.
Drill program
The planned drill program will be carried out on two principal sections, with twins of several historical holes which returned pREO intersections.
Besides validating historical results, it will also test the extent of REE mineralisation for follow-up targets as well as the confining “hot granites” as a potential shallow source for the previously intersected REE mineralisation.
This article was developed in collaboration with Summit 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.