Red Mountain Mining completes first phase of soil sampling at Monjebup rare earths project
Red Mountain Mining (ASX: RMX) has completed the first phase of a preliminary soil sampling program at the Monjebup rare earths project in Western Australia.
The program is part of a farm-in agreement with Liontown Resources (ASX: LTR) which will see Red Mountain earn up to 80% equity in the project.
The company collected a total of 81 soil samples on a 2 kilometre by 500 metre spacing within gazetted road reserves, targeting rare earth anomalies previously discovered by Liontown.
It used 5 millimetre and 2mm sieves for every sample, which as reported to have been difficult in some locations due to recent rainfalls and the wet nature of some clay types.
Samples are currently being processed by Intertek Genalysis in Perth, with assays expected in late October.
Project location
The Monjebup project is located 80km north-east of Albany over private land in the Albany portion of the Albany-Fraser Orogen.
The Orogen extends along the southern and south-eastern margin of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton and comprises ortho-gneisses, granites and sedimentary rocks.
It also has remnants of mafic dykes and large sheets of metagabbros, as well as mafic granulites.
Historical sampling by Windward Resources in 2015 identified anomalous cerium, lanthanum and yttrium levels however sampling was mainly targeted for nickel-copper-gold and the rare earths potential was not considered at the time.
In early 2022, Liontown applied for the Monjebup project tenements with the intention of exploring for ionic clay rare earths.
Early-stage field reconnaissance and surface sampling along public access roads was completed and highly-anomalous results were obtained, including up to 969 parts per million total rare earth oxides.
Farm-in agreement
In July, Red Mountain entered into a farm-in agreement with Liontown subsidiary LBM (Aust) to acquire an 80% interest in Monjebup.
It is planning to follow-up Liontown’s early success with activities including grid sampling and metallurgical testwork to determine the leaching potential of the rare earth content.
Under the terms of the farm-in, Red Mountain will outlay $500,000 of exploration expenditure at Monjebup within a 24-month period.