Resource Base granted first exploration licence for Mitre Hill rare earth elements project
Resource Base believes the licences could be prospective for ionic clay-hosted REE.
Junior explorer Resource Base (ASX: RBX) has been granted an exploration licence for one of five tenements within the Mitre Hill rare earth elements (REE) project which stretches across the Murray Basin in Victoria and South Australia.
The tenement, situated on the Victorian side of the border, forms part of a package spread over 1,380 square kilometres of land and a strike length of at least 40km, with the potential to be prospective for shallow ionic clay-hosted REEs.
The company acquired the package last month from privately-owned WA company Mitre Hill Pty Ltd with a view to establishing a footprint in the highly-prospective region.
The package is located on either side of the Red Tail and Yellow Tail deposits owned by Australian Rare Earths (ASX: AR3) which contain a combined inferred mineral resource of 39.9 million tonnes at 725 parts per million total rare earth oxides.
Regulatory approval
Resource Base executive chairman and chief executive officer Shannon Green said he was pleased that the first application had received regulatory approval.
“Subject to completion of the Mitre Hill project acquisition, securing this important exploration licence with prospectivity for ionic clay hosted REE mineralisation is a fantastic outcome for our company,” he said.
“The recent announcements of significant ionic clay hosted REEs by Australian Rare Earths has highlighted the potential of this region.”
Resource Base is now planning a low-cost exploration and drilling program to investigate areas prospective for REE mineralisation as well as economic concentrations of heavy rare earths considered strategically important given global supply modelling.
Basin geology
The Murray Basin extends over 300,000sq km predominated by Cainozoic sediments.
In the Mallee region to the west, the Cainozoic Loxton Parilla sands are concealed beneath semi-arid landscape of quaternary dune fields.
The Mitre Hill tenements are located over the transition from the concluding phases of the Loxton-Parilla strandlines to the more broadly-spaced Bridgewater formation in South Australia and Victoria.
Resource Base has acquired a significant archive of historical exploration data relating to the Mitre Hill project, including drilling results and information from government studies and minor exploration efforts by private owners.