Western Mines Group have confirmed the discovery of an extensive nickel sulphide mineral system running through the Mulga Tank Ultramafic Complex at its flagship project in the exploration frontier of the Western Australia’s eastern Yilgarn Craton.
Assays from a deep EIS-backed hole MTD023 returned with elevated nickel and sulphur coincident with highly anomalous copper and platinum group elements, demonstrating the disseminated sulphides are in fact magmatic nickel sulphide mineralisation.
The significant mineralised intersections cumulatively total 693.5m at 0.28% nickel, 128ppm cobalt, 61ppm copper, and 27ppb platinum and palladium.
WMG Managing Director Dr Caedmon Marriott said it was a big hole for the company, in more than one sense.
With the aid of our EIS grant we simply aimed to drill the deepest part of the complex – to gather the greatest amount of geological information we could,” he said.
“It could well be a pivotal hole for the Company, with these assay results confirming the visual observations of extensive disseminated nickel sulphide mineralisation.
“The hole validates our geological model of the complex and really demonstrates a significant working nickel sulphide mineral system with huge volumes of mineralised ultramafic magma.”
Dr Marriott noted the system could host significant tonnes of Mt Keith-style mineralisation, and WMG Technical Director Dr Ben Grguric added that every new drill hole was showing broad intersections of disseminated sulphide alongside intersections of high-grade remobilised nickel sulphide.
“These are clearly hallmarks of a very large mineralised system. The host rock, being continuous intersections of hundreds of metres of adcumulate dunite, is indicative of a very large, very hot and energetic magmatic system and this augurs extremely well for the prospectivity of the project,” he said.
The company is hardly done at Mulga Tank and is undertaking a six-hole diamond program for up to 5000 metres to test a number of follow-up targets from its first drilling program while continuing targeting work at its flagship.
Significant intersections include:
- 78m at 0.28% Ni, 131ppm Co, 70ppm Cu, 32ppb Pt+Pd from 118m
inc. 20m at 0.38% Ni, 137ppm Co, 57ppm Cu, 45ppb Pt+Pd from 176m - 306m at 0.26% Ni, 130ppm Co, 47ppm Cu, 24ppb Pt+Pd from 402m
- 221.5m at 0.25% Ni, 116ppm Co, 68ppm Cu, 23ppb Pt+Pd from 794.5m
inc. 11.5m at 0.37% Ni, 134ppm Co, 75ppm Cu, 43ppb Pt+Pd from 794.5m - 88m at 0.44% Ni, 151ppm Co, 85ppm Cu, 38ppb Pt+Pd from 1,212
