MTM Critical Metals have significantly increased the extent of its clay-hosted rare earth prospect after assays confirmed that broad mineralisation at Pt Kidman stretches well beyond the known boundaries at its East Laverton Project in Western Australia’s northeastern Goldfields.
The company now holds an area of consistently mineralised envelopes covering 12 square kilometres, with numerous high-grade strikes, thick intervals, and heavy proportions of the most valuable elements confirming Pt Kidman as a large-scale rare earth opportunity.
MTM Managing Director Lachlan Reynolds said drilling intercepts had validated already-defined anomalies and confirmed the company was dealing with a highly prospective area as it hones in on a new rare earth discovery.
As we had previously seen in aircore drilling, the rare earth elements occur in a very broad, shallow and continuous zone of shallow mineralisation, in some cases from surface,” Mr Reynolds said.
“The presence of thick zones of higher-grade mineralisation, up to 30 metres, gives us great encouragement that the Pt Kidman prospect area has the potential to contain a resource with a significant proportion of high value NdPr and critical rare earth oxides.”
“Our exploration team is keen to extend the soil sampling coverage within our tenements and we fully expect to define further areas for drill testing – more drilling is also required to home-in on the best parts of the system and our objective is to make a new rare earth deposit discovery.”
Large, prospective areas remain untested. MTM will implement more sampling as it completes preliminary metallurgical work on the drill samples, turning an eye to processing options as it further unlocks the nature of East Laverton.
Higher-grade drilling intersections include:
- 29m @ 1,667ppm TREO
- 29m @ 2,116ppm TREO
- 12m @ 2,564ppm TREO
- 11m @ 2,753ppm TREO
- 4m @ 3,400ppm TREO inc. 1m @ 8,752ppm TREO
TREO proportions:
- High-value Nd+Pr oxides represent an average of 19.5% of TREO grade
- High-value magnet rare earth oxides represent an average of 24.4% of TREO grade
- Critical rare earth oxides (CREO) average 21.7% of TREO grade
- Heavy rare earth oxides represent an average of 11.4% of TREO grade
