Kula Gold has unveiled compelling grades of up 2534 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO) in an air-core (AC) and reverse-circulation (RC) campaign at its Rankin Dome joint venture project near Southern Cross in Western Australia.
The company says drilling by its partner Australian Critical Minerals (ACM) has defined thick rare earths sections with a standout individual RC result of 5m at 1641ppm TREO. All RC holes revealed grades of greater than 1000ppm, while shallow AC holes show results up to 1365ppm TREO.
One RC hole returned the longest grade-bearing intercept for the program, with 111m at 979ppm TREO from 3m depth. Another hole reported the highest-grade multi-metre intercept of 3m going 2026ppm TREO from 12m depth.
Importantly, about 20 to 25 per cent of the RC results include significant magnet rare earth oxides (MREO) including praseodymium, neodymium, terbium and dysprosium – which are all important in the manufacture of the rare earths-based “permanent magnets” that have special application in the motors of electric vehicles (EVs).
“These outstanding results from ACM’s maiden drilling program confirm the prospectivity on the Rankin Dome Project. Significantly the magnetic rare earths consistently make up 20% to 27% of the TREO intervals. The high-definition auger sampling brings great clarity to the north-west sector. The substantial consistent strike lengths of highly anomalous near surface geochemistry in the auger area and consistent anomalous grades returned from the RC drilling is a significant result over a broad area and validates the approach taken by the Company.” Australian Critical Minerals managing director Dean de Largie
The auger drilling program comprised 254 shallow holes on a 100m-by-100m grid drilled to 2m to avoid surface contamination and dilution effects. It defines a distinct, 900m-long, north-east/south-west-trending zone of elevated TREO (including yttrium oxide) geochemistry within a broader 500m-by-200m area of higher rare earths values up to a maximum of 1297ppm TREO.
The RC drilling program entailed a total of 864m, with five holes drilled to 150m and the remaining hole to 114m. Hole locations were predicated on previous areas of elevated rare earths geochemistry, which had been defined by Kula using auger drilling on aeromagnetic anomalies.
All RC holes returned thick, continuous and significant TREO results that included between 20 and 26 per cent MREO.
ACM says the rare earths results are usually associated with granodioritic rock types, although this appears not to be absolute as one hole indicates significant mineralisation near the bottom of the drillhole in a monzogranite before transitioning back into granodiorite.
Additionally, rare earths mineralisation is often observed to be enhanced in the weathered (saprolitic) rocks, which typically include higher proportions of clays and may indicate one or both of two methods of possible enrichment due to fluctuating groundwater movements, possible upwards ionic migrations and the retention of rare earths in the clay lattices.
Rankin Dome consists of three exploration licences in the Youanmi Terrane near Southern Cross. ACM has a farm-in agreement with Kula to earn a 51 per cent JV interest.
Encouraged by elevated rare earths grades, the JV says it is continuing its exploration pursuits.
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