Dreadnought Resources confirms rare earths discovery at Mangaroon
First pass drilling by Dreadnought has revealed a surprising 600m by 550m rare earths zone at C3.
Dreadnought Resources (ASX: DRE) has announced further outstanding results from a drilling program at its wholly-owned Mangaroon project in Western Australia, confirming a large rare earths discovery at C3.
The explorer began a ‘first pass’ 82-hole (7,813m) reverse circulation drilling program last September on the C1-C5 carbonatites with no definitive targets.
The aim of the campaign was to identify mineralisation to allow future programs to vector in on a potential source of the regional rare earth ironstones.
Dreadnought today confirmed a 600m by 550m zone of rare earth elements (REE)-phosphate-niobium-titanium-scandium mineralisation at the C3 carbonatite discovery.
Assays from 23 holes for 1,911m included the near-surface intercepts of 31m at 1.26% total rare earth oxides (TREO) from 4m, 44m at 1% TREO from 13m, 31m at 1.12% TREO from 4m, and 21m at 1.25% TREO from 9m. Importantly, many of the highlighted assay results ended in mineralisation.
Dreadnought managing director Dean Tuck called the large discovery at C3 “remarkable” considering the first pass drilling program was “like throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded”.
“C3 is already shaping up as a source of the regional rare earths and maybe C4 and C5 too,” he said.
Mr Tuck noted how C6 and C7 “have not even been touched yet”.
Drilling to restart next month
Dreadnought is now planning to recommence RC and diamond drilling in February/March which will include completing first pass drilling at the C2-C7 carbonatites, commencing JORC resource infill drilling at C3, extending the mineralisation at depth and pursuing high-grade core as seen at Mt Weld and Mountain Pass.
“With the range and scale of minerals we have already seen, this region is emerging as a world-class critical metals province,” Mr Tuck said.
Mangaroon rare earths project
Today’s confirmed discovery follows last month’s inferred resource estimate for the Yin ironstone complex of 14.36 million tonnes at 1.13% TREO. This initial estimate only covers 3km of the 30km strike and was based on only 2.5 months of RC drilling (11,907m). Yin remains open over the additional 27km of strike and at depth.
The explorer also recently received assays for the Sabre and Y8 ironstones, which have a 15km strike length and sit within 30km of strike along the Yin complex. These results included: 9m at 1.02% TREO from 7m including 1m at 7.01% TREO; and 4m at 2.01% TREO from 53m including 1m at 6.96% TREO.