Krakatoa Resources Ltd (ASX:KTA) is confident it has hit upon a new clay-hosted rare earth element (REE) province at the Rand Project in the Riverina of southern NSW.
Anomalous REE results
A first-pass aircore drill campaign consisting of twenty-seven vertical aircore holes over 1,319 metres tested new, high-priority REE targets at project and defined anomalous REEs hosted in clay-weathered granites at shallow depths.
Hole depths ranged from 3 to 72 metres, with a median depth of 54 metres. Most holes were terminated at the top of saprock, unless terminated sooner due to difficult drilling conditions.
Final assays are in for the roadside easement aircore drilling the company conducted last quarter, and shallow aircore intersections over the Ryan and Jindera Granites returned high magnetic rare earth oxides (MREO) and critical rare earth oxide (CREO) levels.
Anomalous zones of greater than 250 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO) were intersected in all holes. Furthermore, the Ryan Granite holes located in the north-east of the area of interest, returned multiple, consistent thick intersections at shallow to moderate depths.
Highlights
Key intersections include:
- 8 metres at 1,056 ppm TREO within 42 metres @ 483 ppm TREO from surface;
- 12 metres @ 875 ppm TREO from 50 metres;
- 4 metres @ 1,209 ppm TREO from 48 metres;
- 14 metres @ 707 ppm TREO from 46 metres;
- 28 metres @ 658 ppm TREO from 26 metres; and
- 6 metres @ 739 ppm TREO from 18 metres.
These results, supported by numerous significant intersections from clay-weathered saprolites developed on the Ryan and Jindera Granites, have led the company to make the clay-hosted REE discovery at Rand.
The company will now undertake initial leach kinetic testwork on selected samples to determine how amenable the REE is to simple lixiviant mobilisation.
“Our Rand project continues to deliver significant outcomes for the company and these assay results from first pass, wide-spaced aircore drilling are highly encouraging and proved that these selective Granite types have the potential to host shallow clay REE deposits,” Krakatoa CEO Mark Major said.
“In addition to these encouraging results, the Ryan and Jindera Granites have sizeable footprints that we look forward to investigating further.
“Although our focus remains on our Mt Clere project in Western Australia, our NSW portfolio continues to demonstrate excellent potential for major discoveries.”
Extraction viability
The company will now send certain aircore samples to an accredited laboratory to undertake simple leach test work to determine the viability for extraction of the key REE such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium.
Further interpretive work will be completed on the aircore drilling program results before the planning of further shallow drilling.