Australian Bauxite said this week that it has begun further drilling to determine if ionic adsorption clay (IAC) mineralization continues further into the Deep Leads Project.
ABx says the next set of 18 drill holes will determine whether the area has similar rare earth grades as its current northernmost drillhole. The sample obtained from that drill was 36 feet thick and was saturated with permanent magnet rare earths, including dysprosium (Dy) and terbium (Tb), and it showed a combined total of 4.7% of TREO.
The firm says the northernmost drill is the best rare earth intercept in the area so far. It’s in the northeast corner of the first set of drills and is the first of several prospects in the area towards its Wind Break discovery.
ABx Group Managing Director and CEO Mark Cooksey said in a press release that his firm is very much anticipating analyzing the samples from the planned drills.
“We are very excited to be undertaking this drill program to follow up on the stellar result from discovery hole RM302 and to better understand whether IAC rare earth mineralisation extent north of Deep Leads – Rubble Mound.”
“We anticipate the program should only take two weeks to complete with assay results anticipated shortly thereafter,” he continued. “The outcome of this program has the potential to be significant value driver for ABx.”
So far the target area at Deep Leads – Rubble mound has expanded from 13.5 square miles to almost 40 square miles. ABx says its increasingly larger dataset is allowing it to be more selective in where it plans new sample drill locations.