Alvo Minerals Limited (ASX: ALV) has commenced the maiden drill programme at the recently acquired Bluebush REE Project, located on the northern half of the Serra Dourada granite, host of the Serra Verde Ionic Clay REE deposit in Brazil.
Serra Verde boasts a Mineral Resource1 of 911Mt @ 1,200ppm Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) and a Mineral reserve of 350Mt @ 1,500ppm TREO, and is believed to be the only Ionic Clay project in construction outside of China.
When we listed on the ASX in October 2021 we commenced our maiden diamond-drill programme at the Palma VMS Project within three days, now we are commencing our maiden auger drill programme at the Bluebush REE Project within a week of the acquisition. We haven’t slowed down since IPO and aren’t planning on it,” Managing Director, Rob Smakman, said.
“The auger drill programme is the first phase of due diligence as we test the depth profile of the REE mineralisation hosted in the saprolite (clay) and send samples to the laboratory to confirm Bluebush is a true ionic clay deposit. We are confident in the likelihood of the results as Serra Verde to the south is on the same granite formation and exhibits similar characteristics of REE mineralisation identified by the previous owners of Bluebush.”
The maiden drill program will initially commence at northern prospects Fazendinha and Ferradura that intercepted rare earth mineralisation from surface to end of hole (EOH), including:
The owners of Bluebush drilled a total of 258 auger holes for approximately 930m (average 3.6m depth). The auger drilling would often stop once the saprolite clay horizon was intercepted as the primary targets were the alluvials (and partly due to restrictions of the handheld equipment) and as such, the routine sampling of these horizons often ended in mineralisation.
Alvo will utilise its in-house auger drilling expertise that has seen it drill 666 auger holes for 6,044m since mid- January 2023 completed at the Palma VMS Project to rapidly progress the Bluebush REE Project.