NickelX takes Dalwallinu to next stage with detailed sampling campaign
Limited historical exploration across the Hyden rare earths project returned up to 4.67% TREO, with mineralisation remaining open in all directions.
Detailed sampling has begun at NickelX’s (ASX: NKL) Dalwallinu project in Western Australia, which is believed prospective for mineralisation similar to Chalice Mining’s (ASX: CHN) Julimar nickel-copper-platinum group element discovery.
The program will involve infill auger drill soil sampling and follows a close-spaced drone magnetic survey over the project, which firmed-up four high priority targets.
Auger drill sampling will be completed over the high priority targets using 50m by 50m spacing.
The campaign is expected to be finished within a week, with assays anticipated before the end of the March quarter.
Historical samples contain nickel-copper-PGE
Historical sampling over the target areas has uncovered 73.7 parts per billion platinum and palladium plus up to 466ppm nickel and 843ppm copper.
NickelX managing director Matt Gauci said the high-priority areas were well defined exploration targets for Julimar-style mineralisation.
“The exploration team are very excited by the prospectivity the four high priority targets represent and in conjunction with the current infill soil sampling program are progressing EM (electromagnetic) surveys and drilling permits to take the project forward.”
Dalwallinu project
NickelX picked up the Dalwallinu project, which is 200km northeast of Perth, in September last year.
The auger soil sampling program follows a detailed drone survey that was completed earlier this month.
This survey covered the entire Barra Barra mafic and ultramafic-intrusive target across the project and was completed in 50m-spaced flight lines.
All-up, the survey gathered 771-line kilometres of magnetic data over the project.
Work to-date at Dalwallinu has identified priority nickel-copper-PGE targets over 6km of strike. The company plans to investigate this 6km of strike further with more detailed geochemical, geophysical and drilling.
The project covers 86 square kilometres and lies within the underexplored Barra Barra Greenstone Belt in WA’s West Yilgarn.
NickelX noted the region is home to several recent nickel-copper-PGE discoveries including Julimar, which is about 150km away.