Here goes. Firstly MTH have a really strong nickel exploration...

Here goes.

Firstly MTH have a really strong nickel exploration team, from the chairman down the line. So they know their stuff better than most.

At Kunalpi you have lateritic nickel overlaying bedrock ultramafic rocks. The lateritic nickel is best discovered by surface sampling over magnetic highs. The serpentinised ultramafic rocks have abundant magnetite so stick out like dogs proverbials in mag data. The serpentinisation process is the first step in the process that can culminate in formation of nickel laterite - it all depends on how well laterite formed in the first place and how much erosion of the weathered material over the bedrock has occurred to preserve any laterite formed. The nickel and cobalt come from weathering of olivine and typically have nothing to do with sulphide whatsoever.

Copper in the geochem response is a good sign as you would not expect to see any copper at all in the laterite over barren ultramafic. In komatiite systems like you have here, the most ultramafic rocks are also the best environment for possible nickel-copper sulphide accumulation. What’s needed is an injection of sedimentary sulphide from the local country rocks into the ultramafic to allow sulphide formation in the ultramafic and precipitation of nickel-copper sulphides. This is where it gets tricky for exploration and EM, as the country rock sulphides are necessary to form nickel sulphides, but are usually wide spread and also form excellent EM conductors that can’t be distinguished from the target nickel sulphides. So EM conductors are usually country rock sulphides, not orebodies, but the orebodies form where the ultramafic comes in contact with the country rock sulphide. Look for the best mag high (thick serpentinised ultramafic) that has the best EM response and you can shorten the odds, but the EM anomaly still might be barren sedimentary sulphide in the footwall of the ultramafic. You get the idea of how hard it will be to determine whether a conductor is one or the other. Only way is to drill and see what you get.

If there were no EM conductors then don’t bother, as there would also be no sedimentary sulphide for the ultramafic to interact with and form nickel sulphides.

So good signs, but a lot of drilling to go before they’ll know one way or the other.