Ann: High-Grade Rare Earth & Niobium Zones at C3 & C5 - Mangaroon, page-55

Everyone is speculating on exploration results, potential results, future project developments and implications for company value in the stock market, the very definition of speculation. Management right down to the peanut gallery on HC... everyone has an opinion, some well substantiated, most not. It's fun if not valuable, enthusiastically welcomed, but only so long as it's bullish and from management or bullish posters apparently.

Project economics involves a good deal less arm waving assumptions than project exploration, based on well-established costs and peer derived, probability driven economic parameters. Yet unless the answer is bullish, posters insist on hiding behind "it's way too soon"..."don't even have the company results yet"... "only time will tell" to shut down economic speculation, when nothing is more important to valuation than project economics . All the while, same posters are happy making arm waving speculation about the geology and discovery potential, usually based on absurdly small data points...

So I'm a bit annoyed @salpetie last post emphatically shut me down in their first sentence, if politely... "Time will tell if the results are economic." To make matters worse, I'm copping accusations on other threads that I only tag salpetie to lift my own reputation in the wake of his well-earned and followed one, that I'm out of their league. I'm not looking for a fight, but do want to defend my position and reputation, such as it is. Given the carb results are starting to roll in and Yin's new MRE no doubt preludes a SS, seems the perfect time for me to substantiate the sort of REE project economics DRE is looking at in Mangroon.

Before that, though geology arm-waving is not my forte, I have an issue with salpetie's Fe-carb vs Mg-carb interp of the last SE line of holes 107-111.


With due respect, because salpetie does great work and I believe they appreciate geology debate, this interp is complete bollocks. Not that it can't be so, just that all the geology and results to date, the very nature of multi-intrusion carbonatite complexes, point to a different, simpler explanation. Start by zooming out, the C1-C5 carb complex is clearly a series of larger 'primary' ovoid pipes coalesced along strike instead of perhaps the more common circular complex aggregate. Difficult in this image, but zoom in and the individual pipes are quite clear in the magnetics.


Within and between the primary pipes, multiple smaller, later pipes and dykes have intruded. These are recognised in various REE, Ti, Nb enriched zones also with a generally ovoid shape as one might expect (there is little evidence of dominant, internal linear structural control). Some supergene enriched zones are elongated SE, some NE, some neither, but all seem to reflect relatively discrete later intrusion activity. This pattern of concentric intrusion and alteration zones is seen in carbonatite hosted deposits all over. lots detail in multiple smaller pipes, dykes, breccia hydrothermal zones punching up through the early carb intrusion/alteration zone i'm sure, but at this scale of laterite exploration drilling we are expecting 'blobs within blobs'.

We also know from sections released that the general trend is Mg-carbonatite occurs at pipe edges, probably Mg-carb was the early 'primary' pipe rock-type, replaced by later Fe-carb (towards the centre) that contains higher grades of the immiscible economic elements DRE are interested in (REE, Nb, Ti, Sc). Possibly there is a zonation of Fe- to Mg rich form the centre but that's not my base case. I won;t waste time with an explanation why this might be so, just that it's what we see like in this early SW-NE section across C3 supergene deposit.

Here is a close up of the C3 deposit (over greyscale magnetic image) that actually sits between c2 and C3 'primary' pipes to my view, supporting an interp that Fe-carbs are a later intrusion following up structural weakness between two Mg-carb pipes instead of trying to force it's way up inside them.

Anyway, finer detail is interesting but not required to interp the along-strike line of holes 107-111 further south. To cut to the chase, C1-C5 has demonstrated a pipe-within-pipe style of intrusion complex, with some pipes being elevated in economic elements, usually associated with Fe-carb rocks, so far usually centred along the 6km x 1km chain of primary carb pipes.


We aren't privy to all the drill logs, but hole111 in Fe-carb, with elevated economic elements, is highly likely to be the southern edge of a smaller Fe-carb intrusion/alteration. Not to say the SW side of the 107-111 line of holes doesn;t host a skinny SE striking Fe-carb, just that it's an explanation with no justification.

I don't always agree with DRE commentary or approach, but they aren't stupid, so drilling a first-pass line of holes SE down the 6km trend makes a lot of exploration sense. Given an economic sized deposit will have at least a C3 400m x 400m supergene footprint, you'd be unlucky not to at least hit the edge of it drilling SE down the middle right (the carb proper is <1km wide, excluding outer alteration halo). It appears they share my interp and drilled a line down the guts to see where the C4 elevated supergene was heading SE. Results indicate it was heading into unmineralized Mg-carb... so pull up the rig and move on boys.

Then again, I could be wrong. Time will tell...

GLTAH