To zoom into the Kimberley geological setting and history of the...

To zoom into the Kimberley geological setting and history of the neighbourhoods exploration let's start with DRE's july 2021 drilling release. The major Ruins Dolerite intrusions are mapped on this province scale and highlighted with green arrows, though BUX's Qucik Shears (now a new discovery renamed Dogleg) NW of Merlin is hosted in Dolerite even though it wasn;t mapped at this scale. A very substantial amount of the King Leopold orogeny, much with good outcrop exposure, has so far only revealed a few modest 'Dolerite Hosted' sulphide discoveries of note (all uneconomic).


The discussion of Texas-Orion Ni-Cu-PGE propects (eg mafic magmatic sulphides same as Money Intrusion targets) below describes exploration ongoing since 2015 and before, including the Orion discovery hole KMRC017. We know the drilling, EM, soils and drilling over two more programmes since 2021, including today's, added a lot more knowledge to the geology and mineralisation. Where Dean's opinion today differs from mine, is I see too many holes into too many well defined targets downgrading if not killing prospects now getting long in the tooth. Drilling at Chianti-Rufina, Fuso and Paul's Find have all gone the same way, except without the intermediate excitement and potential of early Orion-like discoveries...



Orion has some nice hits and high-grades, but in detail it looks as more poddy as 'shoot' outside the 50m strike defined by two sections in the core of alteration. The two deeper holes into this core area KMRD056 and 57 both downgrade the continuity of mineralisation on account of thin ore zone, and/or only laminated/breccia sulphides, low average sulphide content, and/or pyrhotie-pyrite dominant sulphides... Orion is shrinking in size and average grade/thickness from already small, and in the middle of nowhere Kimberley. Location matters, the more remote the area the bigger scale a discovery needs to be to economically.


BUX has a lot more ground with Ruins Dolerite than DRE, their Sentinel project being SW of their Merlin/Dogleg project, where intensive rock chip, and EM surveys defined a number of dolerite related targets. Oct 2022 drilled 3 holes into these coincident anomalies and all three EM anomalies were explained by stringer sulphides in shale like sediments (+/- disseminated +/- semi-massive) at the boundary of ruin Dolerite intrusions (phots of two holes below).


Basically the same description i kept reading looking back at DRE's Kimberley exploration history, such as this from Chianti-Rufino same 2021 report below


This quote from Dec 2021 on DRE's Orion infill drilling... not just are dissem-stringer sulphides very common in seds at the margin of dolerite intrusions, but the shales are 'graphitc', which in laymans terms means they often throw up EM anomalies on account of the graphite in shale. This is why I went bearish on the coincident EM and minor magnetic anomalies down the eastern side of the Orion Dolerite intrusion a while back. Unlike Orion proper 'inside' the dolerite, the EM anomalies of OR7, 3 and 4 all looked in the location and style to represent stringer sulphides in contact metamorphosed shales not significant massive sulphides in dolerite like Orion. My original post in this link (https://hotcopper.com.au/posts/70447555/single)

So now it's back to the future and looking for Ni-Cu-PGE targets like BUX's Merlin and recent Dogleg discoveries. Merlin was a technical success but after ~50 holes only demonstrates the potential for economic magmatic hosted 'chonlith' style Ni-Cu-PGE deposits like DRE is exploring for at Money Intrusion.

Follow-up drilling released last week at Dogleg realistically killed it as a material discovery, though it is proof that significant massive sulphides can develop in Ruins Dolerite.


"In addition to continuing the exploration and evaluation of Cu-Ag-Au-Co mineralisation at Orion and Thunderer, the project will be reassessed for Ruin Dolerite hosted Ni-Cu-PGE mineralisation similar to the recent Merlin/Double Magic and Dog Leg discoveries along strike."... Along strike is more than a stretch... over 50km away and north across strike of the clear NW structural trend apparent in the magnetics and gravity (very bottom). Just so long as nobody fact checks I suppose you can say anything and bulls will be happy. (Note; Dogleg is in the Quick Shears project)





I wont' go on... if you can't see my point, then there is no point. The market is doing what I'm doing, looking at the results not listening to what Dean says... which history has proven ios the best way to play DRE

GLTAH