Redstone Resources Limited (ASX Code: RDS) has added a recently identified historical drill hole to its planned 2021 Exploration Programme on the company’s 100% owned West Musgrave Project in Western Australia.
The 2021 campaign is anticipated to commence in the coming months, subject to final grant of government approvals and availability of drilling resources.
The programme is now also planned to include RC drilling for nickel prospectivity by drill testing a 1957 Southwestern Mining Ltd (SWM) diamond drillhole, A‐101, which yielded a maximum value of 0.16% Ni over 1.6m from 99m downhole.
The historical drill hole targeted a N‐S oriented fault that is part of the fault system responsible for the Tollu copper mineralisation but situated to the west of the main body of mineralisation so far delineated by Redstone drilling.
Chairman, Richard Homsany, said Redstone plans to twin the SWM diamond hole A‐101 with an RC drill hole to test if the intersection of anomalous nickel values of up to 0.16% NI can be repeated and if so, ascertain the nature of the anomalous nickel, if it is associated with nickel sulphide mineralisation and where it may have originated from.
To date Redstone has been focused on the rich and extensive copper bearing vein system at Tollu, so far delineating some 3.8 million tonnes at 1% Cu, containing 38,000 tonnes of copper in the vein system. SWM, formerly a subsidiary of INCO Ltd, were pioneering explorers in the region in the late 1950s and were the first to delineate the copper mineralisation at Tollu via a surface rock chip sampling programme.
Despite the exceptional grades and extent of copper mineralisation SWM delineated at the surface at Tollu, SWM’s primary focus on nickel meant that it did not target the copper veins with the three holes it drilled in the area.
However, publicly available historical company reports from SWM also do not make it clear why it did not follow up the anomalous nickel values it intersected in drill hole A‐101.
Mr Homsany said that Ggven the world class magmatic nickel, copper, PGE Nebo Babel Deposit, discovered in 2000 by Western Mining Corporation and now owned and undergoing feasibility assessment by Oz Minerals Limited, lies only 50km to the west of Tollu, Redstone is of the view it is prudent to test the historical SWM nickel intersection on Tollu’s western margin.
If the intersection can be confirmed it may indicate that the Nebo Babel like nickel, copper, PGE mineralisation or even more massive sulphide variants of similar geological theme, could also be present near or at depth to Tollu and in the greater Project area.