Taruga Minerals finds clay-hosted REE at surface at Morgans Creek prospect
Latest drilling at Morgans Creek returned a peak 1m interval grading 6,068ppm TREO from 3m.
Taruga Minerals (ASX: TAR) has discovered clay-hosted rare earth element (REE) mineralisation from surface at the Morgans Creek prospect, within the Mt Craig project in South Australia.
The mineralisation was identified during a rotary air blast drilling campaign which kicked off last month.
Drilling comprised 59 holes for a total 2,156 metres to test strike extensions of clay-hosted REE intercepted at the Hydrothermal Hill target last year in weathered Yednalue quartzite.
Best intercepts were 14m at 1,016 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO) from 3m; 16m at 913ppm TREO from 2m, including 3m at 2,092ppm TREO from 2m; 10m at 780ppm TREO from 4m; 7m at 706ppm TREO from 4m; 9m at 1,093ppm TREO from 3m; 9m at 1,053ppm TREO from 1m; and 5m at 822ppm TREO from 9m.
Another hole intercepted 24m at 886ppm TREO from surface, including 5m at 2,378ppm TREO from 2m, with 1m at 6,068ppm TREO from 3m and 3m at 1,101ppm TREO from 17m.
Highest values
The mineralisation is reported to have the highest values of dysprosium-terbium and neodymium-praseodymium intercepted to date.
It contains low thorium and uranium, which are beneficial for downstream processing of REE concentrates, and displays a heavy rare earth content up to 65% and maximum magnet rare earth content of 55%.
The presence of low cerium levels also provides significant processing benefits and means there are “higher concentrations of high-value REEs in the basket”.
Taruga says the results confirm its geological model and highlight long strike extensions of clay-hosted REE mineralisation, increasing the Morgans Creek primary strike to 1.4km.
Encouraging results
Chief executive officer Thomas Line said the company was encouraged by the results of drilling at Morgans Creek.
“Most of the significant intercepts start at or near the surface in the top few metres some holes were still in mineralisation when the rig was no longer able to achieve adequate sample return so we believe the base of mineralisation runs deeper than our drilling,” he said.
“The results include the highest TREO grades we have seen at this prospect the general trend shows that as grade increases so does the heavy rare earth and magnet rare earth content.”