Mount Ridley Mines has discovered two new thick, shallow and high-grade zones of ionic clay hosted rare earth elements at its namesake project some 50km north of Esperance in Western Australia. Regional air-core drilling intersected two new zones of total rare earth oxides, or “TREO” with grades in excess of 1000 parts per million TREO. The company’s Jody discovery returned up to 3182ppm TREO and best results include 35m at 1,999 ppm TREO. At its Marvelous Marvin discovery, the headline result was 21m at 1906ppm TREO.
The Mount Ridley rare earths project covers a massive 3400 square kms and aircore drilling across the region was confined to existing tracks with drillholes spaced approximately 400m apart. Assay results from 88 drill holes showed 77 returning significant TREO according to the company. Four previously identified prospects were extended and two new discoveries made at Jody and Marvelous Marvin
With the company having identified 11 quality targets, each with multiple high grade drilling intersections, the emphasis for drilling will shift to mineral resource-focus drilling, starting at the Mia prospect this week. The Mount Ridley project is clearly very large with multiple mineralised rare earths systems and we are extremely encouraged that new, quality prospects such as Jody and Marvelous Marvin are still emerging.
On the back of the latest results, the company says it has committed to more than 50,000m of drilling with the intention to take its rare earths project towards a maiden resource in 2023.
Mount Ridley has ranked each prospect on a range of criteria including the type of host clay, TREO grade, depth of cover and percentage of magnet rare earths to determine the priority order for resource drilling. The elements known as magnet rare earths are dysprosium, neodymium, praseodymium and terbium and together often form over 60 per cent of the economic value of rare earth ores.
Typical ionic clay hosted rare earths deposits have grades between 400 and 3000 part per million TREO and the assay grades being returned at the Mount Ridley project bode well for a high-grade resource delineation.
Mount Ridley’s latest drill results increase the company’s mineralisation footprint to over 1500 sq.km. At the Jody prospect mineralisation has been discovered over a 5km by 5km zone some 3km north of any previous drilling. What’s more it remains open in all directions. Mineralisation above 500ppm TREO has an average thickness of 13m and magnetic rare earths content of 25 per cent.
t Marvelous Marvin mineralisation above 500ppm TREO has been intersected along an 8km traverse some 15km south of the previously discovered Mia prospect. The company has used aeromagnetic data to conclude that the Marvellous Marvin discovery is likely to be the southern extension of the Mia prospect giving a total mineralised corridor over 20km in length. At Marvellous Marvin mineralisation above 500ppm TREO has an average thickness of 11m from a depth of 21m.
Given the scale, thickness and grade of the Mia-Marvelous Marvin prospect the company has announced it will be the first to be drilled when drilling resumes in February. Magnetic imagery indicates the mineralisation sits above a felsic gneiss rock that may well have been the source rock for the rare earths.
Samples from 20 large diameter diamond drill holes drilled in late 2022 have provided 961.5m of core material for the company to begin extractive metallurgical testing. According to the US Geological Survey the most important economic factor is the ability to leach a high percentage of the rare earths using weak acid solutions. The percentage of high value heavy or magnetic rare earths is another key economic driver.
Mount Ridley appears to have an ionic clay hosted rare earths project on a world class scale currently giving up world class results. Whilst there is a long way to go the company appears to be well on the way to a maiden resource and the lucrative destination of possible future production.
Interesting, MRD under the radar imo
MRD Price at posting:
0.2¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
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