Marmota refines maiden drill program at Muckanippie after ‘exceptional’ titanium discovery

Marmota (ASX: MEU) has made key adjustments to the maiden drilling program at its Muckanippie heavy mineral sands discovery in South Australia, with new work focused to the west of the target.

The company has drilled the 91-hole program, totalling 3,272 metres, to shallow depths averaging 36m to target the titanium-bearing mineral sands from the surface.

Marmota aims to establish a regular grid over the entire interpreted palaeochannel within the tenement.

Original design

The original design featured a high concentration of holes around the four discovery holes and a smaller number of holes to the west, where there had been no prior drilling and less certainty of the company intersecting heavy mineral sands.

Marmota’s geology team has subsequently modified the program’s design as drilling has progressed.

The company has drilled many more holes to the west into areas furthest from the discovery holes.

Visual feedback

Marmota based the changes on positive feedback from samples panned to provide an initial visual indication of the presence of heavy mineral sands.

Panning of samples from the westernmost fenceline returned strong visual indications of heavy mineral content, with those samples currently on their way to Adelaide for further analysis.

Marmota expects initial titanium dioxide assays on 4m composites to provide an immediate overview of the extent of high-grade mineralisation across the palaeochannel within the drilling area.

November discovery

Marmota discovered “exceptional” thick titanium mineralisation from the surface at Muckanippie in November.

It then submitted metallurgical test work samples to specialist laboratories to determine the heavy mineral properties.

The company announced last month that a geological review at Muckanippie had identified a regional-scale palaeochannel that transects Marmota’s recent discovery and Petratherm’s (ASX: PTR) discovery of thick, rich titanium mineralisation at the same site.

GP2 project work

That interpretation of the Mesozoic palaeochannel has been supported by work published as recently as November by the Geological Survey of SA’s GP2 project.

Marmota holds approximately 28 kilometres of the highly prospective titanium-bearing palaeochannel on its tenements.

Of this, approximately 10km lies within Marmota’s tenements to the west.