Estrella Resources Limited (ASX: ESR) has signed an agreement with Canadian-based geophysical firm Expert Geophysics to commence a world-first helicopter-borne electromagnetic survey (TargetEM) at the company’s Carr Boyd Project in Western Australia.
The 253 sq. km survey will target all of Estrella’s tenure at Carr Boyd, encompassing all prospective horizons identified in the recent exploration review including the high priority Colreavy Komatiite target which has had no previous modern geophysics undertaken.
I am extremely pleased and excited to be able to inform shareholders that we will be advancing exploration efforts at our 100% owned Carr Boyd Ni/Cu/PGE project,” Managing Director, Chris Daws, said.
“We have always looked to improve our discovery advantage utilising ultra-modern exploration techniques and technology. We were the first to successfully use the revolutionary e-vibe seismic system in WA and our team is now employing a world-first in geophysical surveying methods. This is next-gen geophysical system technology that even the majors have not yet utilised.
“The geophysical survey will cover our entire tenement package at Carr Boyd, some 253km2, so that we can potentially locate drill targets that have previously evaded detection with older technology. The programme will be funded through the recent equity provided by Radium Capital.”
The R&D personnel at Expert Geophysics were the developers behind the highly successful and award winning VTEM, ZTEM and Air-MT systems. The TargetEM system contains many structural, electrical, and software improvements over previous helicopter-borne EM systems that have greatly improved the sensitivity and depth of investigation. Estrella will host the first fully commercial deployment of the system at Carr Boyd in July 2023.
In addition to airborne time-domain low-noise electromagnetic data, the company will be acquiring VLF, magnetics and high-frequency AFMAG data. AFMAG acquired on a time-domain system, has never been released commercially. The system and software have been in development and testing for several years; however, Expert Geophysics now wishes to exploit it more widely and is now making it available in Australia.
AFMAG technology utilises naturally occurring electromagnetic fields in the audio-frequency range, which are associated with global lighting discharges. Thunderstorms release energy converted to electromagnetic fields that propagate through the ionosphere-Earth interspace. The electromagnetic fields and currents induced by these fields in the subsurface are used in the combined system to understand differentiation in the electrical resistivity of the subsurface.
The TargetEM system with the additional AFMAG acquisition gives Estrella the opportunity to update the Carr Boyd conductivity and magnetic models and to incorporate the seismic interpretation along with the recent findings of the collaboration with the CSIRO.
The TargetEM system will be available in July 2023.