Galileo Mining Ltd (ASX: GAL) is preparing to commence aircore drilling next week at the Lantern South Prospect in Western Australia’s Fraser Range Nickel Belt to follow up previous positive early stage drilling results.
A 4000m aircore programme is planned along strike of the sulphide mineralisation in previous drill hole LARC003 on the margin of a large intrusion with similar geology to the Nova ore body.
Managing Director, Brad Underwood, said over two kilometres of untested strike length occurs at the Lantern Prospect with a large magnetic feature interpreted to represent the contact between the prospective intrusions and their host rocks.
“This next round of aircore drilling will be an important step in the follow-up exploration of the sulphides already discovered at the Lantern Prospect,” Mr Underwood said.
“With over two kilometres of untested strike length we are aiming to identify mineralisation similar to Nova-style nickel deposits.
“Our petrography results are again telling us we have the right rock types to host a nickel deposit and, with Legend Mining recently having made a discovery along strike at the Mawson Prospect, this is a very exciting time to be exploring in the Fraser Range.”
The Lantern Prospect lies approximately 50km along strike from Legend Mining’s Mawson Prospect where a massive sulphide discovery was recently announced.
Two priority targets have been developed in the Lantern area and have been renamed Lantern North and Lantern South.
Lantern North is a large EM anomaly at around 340 metres depth while Lantern South contains disseminated nickel-copper sulphide at 110 metres depth. Both targets occur on the margin of a large gabbronorite intrusion measuring 2km by 2.3km on surface, similar to the dimensions of the Nova sill complex which measures 2.4km by 1.2km.
A first-pass aircore drilling programme at the Lantern South Prospect in 2019 identified a nickel and copper geochemical anomaly. RC drilling beneath this anomaly in March 2020 showed that it was caused by disseminated nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation.
Mr Underwood said Galileo now plans to interrogate the two kilometres of strike around the sulphide intersection with additional aircore drilling for the purpose of identifying geochemical responses which, if found, are likely to be related to further sulphide mineralisation.
He added that having identified rock types with the potential to host magmatic nickel-copper deposits, Galileo has checked off an important milestone in the exploration for new deposits at the Lantern Prospect.
Downhole electro-magnetic (EM) surveying has been undertaken at both the Lantern South and Lantern North targets. 200m square surface loops were used to provide an electrical source while a probe was run down the drill holes looking for subsurface responses.
The results were inconclusive with no response obtained from the sulphide intersection in LARC003. Only a conductive response related to the cover rocks above the drill hole was detected.
A diamond drill hole is currently being planned to test for mineralisation beneath LARC003.
Two RC drill holes at the Lantern North target were surveyed, however no response was recorded from the deep EM conductor originally detected by surface moving loop surveying.
The drill holes at Lantern North extended to approximately 210m below surface and may not have come close enough to the deep conductor which has been modelled at 340m depth.
A surface fixed loop EM survey is being planned to delineate the extent of the conductor at Lantern North to refine the target for drill testing.
