Catalina Resources Ltd (ASX:CTN) has been granted the prospective exploration licence E38/3697 near Laverton, Western Australia, securing exposure to several high-value minerals including gold, nickel and rare earth elements (REE).
A 45-square-kilometre tenement within the fertile Eastern Goldfields, the acquisition is of particular interest to CTN due to its proximity to the Mt Weld REE deposit, one of the largest REE deposits in the world – it currently processes some 66,000 tonnes of concentrate containing 26,500 tonnes of rare earth oxide.
The region is also host to the Sunrise Dam (more than 10 million ounces of gold contained) and the Windara Nickel deposit (85,000 tonnes of nickel sulphide), further demonstrating the prospectivity of the area.
Catalina intends to conduct a drilling program in the first quarter of 2024, once necessary heritage surveys, clearances and programs of work have been approved.
Previous exploration at E38/3697
The E38/3697 tenement now constitutes the largest individual tenement in Catalina’s Laverton Project, granted following prolonged negotiations over access agreements with neighbouring parties.
Some exploration activities have been completed previously on the land package, strongly indicating the presence of gold, nickel and REEs.
The Barnicoat Shear Zone (BSZ) cuts through the southwest corner of the tenement, host to multiple gold deposits along its length including the neighbouring Lily Pond Well deposit, which contains an inferred resource of 340,000 tonnes at 1.4 g/t gold for 15,000 ounces.
On CTN’s licence, a drill hole 200 metres to the east of Lily Pond returned results of 3 metres at 1.36 g/t gold, indicating mineralisation may extend into the tenement proper.
Critical mineral exploration
As for nickel, the Pelican Laterite Nickel Resource of 6.4 million tonnes at 0.96% nickel (among other elements) also sits on a belt extending into Catalina’s new tenement.
Shallow rotary air blast (RAB) drilling along this belt (too shallow to penetrate sulphide mineralisation, CTN believes) previously returned results of 1-metre at 2.07% nickel and 1.39% copper, with a second hole striking 3 metres at 1.22% nickel.
The samples weren’t assayed for other pathfinder elements such as copper, chromium, sulphur, or platinum group elements (PGE), however.
As previously mentioned, the world-class Mt Weld Mine sits just 2 kilometres to the south of CTN’s new tenement, offering potential exposure to an entire suite of REEs including lanthanum, cerium, praseodymium, neodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium and yttrium.
At least five discrete, small diameter magnetic anomalies have previously been identified on the tenement that could represent small carbonatite intrusive bodies related to the adjacent Mt Weld carbonatite intrusive complex.