Titanium Sands Ltd (ASX:TSL) believes it has uncovered a significant area of deeper mineralisation at its Mannar Island Heavy Mineral Sands Project in Sri Lanka.
Managing Director, Dr James Searle, said that results from a new RC aircore drilling programme indicate that the current shallow (one – three metre thick) surface exposed resource of 90.03Mt at 6.60% THM is underlain by large areas of deeper mineralisation.
Dr Searle said that while the RC aircore drilling results indicate the deeper mineralisation is likely at least in part to lower grade than the shallow surface resource it is laterally extensive and typically extends down to at least five to 12m below surface under the surface mineral resource.
The complete RC aircore results again demonstrate the major depth potential to substantially increase the previously reported surface exposed mineralisation on the Mannar Island Project,” Dr Searle said.
The RC aircore drilling programme was designed to test for below water table depth extension of the surface exposed mineral resource to a nominal depth of 12m.
Sampling of the RC aircore drill holes every metre was undertaken from surface down to a depth where water recovery with the sample was judged to potentially compromise the accuracy of the sample. Typically this occurred at depths of around eight to 11m below surface.
However visual logging of material from the drill holes was carried from surface to the nominal 12m target depth.
Visual logging of the drilling indicated that almost all holes contained significant concentrations of heavy minerals all the way to the target depth of 12m.
The company is now considering a further drill programme utilising Sonic Core Drilling capable of sampling in water prone materials which would provide accurate samples below the eight to 11m achieved by the RC aircore drilling.
Dr Searle said this could provide TSL with the potential to further significantly enhance the resource.
