Allup Silica Limited (ASX: APS) has confirmed clay-hosted rare earth oxides (REO’s) with grades up to 1985 ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) in its maiden air-core drilling programme at the 100% owned Pink Bark Project, Western Australia.
The company now believes the rare earth clay potential on its land holdings and may lie within a much broader REO clay horizon as indicated by recent discoveries in the region announced by Moho Resources, OD6 Metals and Meeka Metals.
Our air-core drilling program at Pink Bark has yielded encouraging results, with significant clay-hosted rare earth elements discovered, reaching grades of up to 1985 ppm TREO,” Managing Director, Andrew Haythorpe, said.
“This highlights a previously unrecognised potential for REO mineralisation in clay units beneath and beyond drilling to date. At Allup Silica, we’re committed to developing critical mineral deposits vital for the energy transition. Further drilling to explore Allup’s full potential is now being planned.”
The maiden drilling programme represents a significant step forward in the Cmpany’s exploration efforts, and the assay results provide valuable insights into the potential mineral deposits in the targeted areas.
The programne was designed to further understand the geological setting of the area, follow up on surface silica sand mineralisation, and to test for clay-hosted rare earth element (REE) mineralisation. The completed program included 26 holes for 421m, at an average depth of 16.2m.
All assays were undertaken using four-acid soluble digestion, and as such do no return results for resistant non-acid soluble REE minerals.
E63/2138 lies within the Biranup of zone of the Albany Frazer Province north of Esperance. The tenement was acquired to explore and develop silica sand but the many recent nearby discoveries of REE clay hosted deposits within the Biranup zone of the Albany Frazer Province prompted Allup to consider the potential for such deposits on its tenement.
The Biranup zone which has been demonstrated by Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) and contemporary explorers to be rich in valuable REE. A number of ASX listed companies have reported wide areas of saprolitic clay enriched in rare earths overlying the Biranup late stage granite intrusive rocks.
These deposits have been compared to the clay hosted REE deposits of China that have been an important source of REE for China’s battery industry. A number of carbonatites with rare earth potential have also been reported and explored for rare earth mineralisation in this province.
The Biranup granites of the Albany Frazer Province are rapidly emerging as a focus for exploration for clay and carbonatite hosted rare earth deposits.
A recent drilling programme to test E63/2138 for silica sand resources was extended to test the underlying clays for REE potential. The holes were not drilled to basement and can’t be said to have adequately tested the clay horizon immediately overlying the granite, but they did return anomalous values indicating potential for clay hosted Rare Earth deposits.
Further drilling is planned to follow a mini seismic survey designed to target the clay deposits beneath the sand and underlying granite.
Next Steps
- Follow-up drilling program planned to establish the continuity of the Pink Bark prospective clay zones. A Programme of Works (PoW) has been submitted and approved to commence Stage 2 drilling.
- Assess and model drilling data and assay results.
- Conduct airborne geophysical surveys to further identify prospective anomalies.
