Dreadnought Resources‘ regional ground gravity survey has continued the expansion of its Gifford Creek rare earth carbonatite discovery at Mangaroon, now standing at over 17 kilometres of strike at the company’s multi-metal project in the West Australian Gascoyne.
Drilling had already enhanced the collection of five discrete intrusions formerly known as the C1-5 carbonatites, now appearing similar in size and age to China’s massive Bayan Obo carbonatite and its collection of deposits which account for around half of global production.
Dreadnought Managing Director Dean Tuck said geophysical breakthroughs had significantly enhanced the critical metal prospectivity at Mangaroon.
The scale of the Gifford Creek Carbonatite, and similarities to Bayan Obo highlight the potential to discover additional high-grade mineralisation,” Mr Tuck said.
“Furthermore, the ability to target these areas of deeper weathering through geophysics is an exploration breakthrough which paves the way for potentially more effective and efficient targeted exploration, moving away from the statistical pattern drilling approach.
“We look forward to generating and testing targets within the significantly enlarged Gifford Creek Carbonatite in the coming months.”
Considered to be the regional source of rare earth at Mangaroon, a years’ exploration since discovery has so far yielded a 10.84Mt @ 1.00% TREO resource from an area which remains largely undrilled.
Surveying also identified two zones of deeper and higher-grade residual mineralisation over that current resource, a fingerprint which Dreadnought see as a hallmark to identify other higher-grade zones across the project.
Dreadnought is now infilling the survey with a goal of defining areas of deeper weathering and potential high-grade residual enrichment.
Multi-metal Mangaroon
An upgrade on the current 20.06Mt @ 1.03% TREO Inferred Resource at the project’s Yin Ironstones is due by the end of the year, currently covering just four of a 43-kilometre length of strike.
The exploration target ranges up to 100Mt at 1.3% TREO from the top 150 metres of the complex, and Dreadnought have other opportunities to explore while it awaits the next upgrade.
The company has confirmed high-grade Ni-Cu-Co-PGE Massive Sulphides at the earn-in portion of the project, confirming a fertile magmatic system and spurring a reassessment across the entire 45-kilometre Money intrusion for multiple deposits.
There are also fresh gold targets showing high-grade and camp-scale potential at Mangaroon and the Perth-based discovery maker is set to begin a pivotal drilling program at its Tarraji-Yampi Project in the Kimberley, following up on a shallow Cu-Ag-Au-Co massive sulphide discovery and several new lookalike targets.
