rare earths : hardman report

What a delight to see Hardman Report (available from THR website) talking about possible REE upside at Hartz Range...Daicos Deposit.

Some of us spotted this last year, and recent sample assays indicate 3.4% REE content at Daicos....as well as Uranium values above 10%

How about that !

Arufura Resources Nolans Bore was once only known as a "Uranium" prospect until the drill results started to come in with awesome REE grades :)

THRs Daicos and ARUs Nolans are about 65km away from each other in the NT.
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Below is a part of the Hardman Report:

Daicos

The limited number of assay results available from the Daicos prospect so far are excellent. With several samples showing assays of over 10% uranium and visible uraninite this would be a site of special geological interest in most parts of the world.

With the area of the exposed portion of the pegmatite vein system that hosts these spot samples being 300m by 400m and located 200km from Alice Springs in the uranium mining friendly Northern Territory it becomes economically interesting.

However the samples from Daicos don’t just contain uranium minerals at almost 20% in some samples, they also contain niobium (Nb) at up to 28% and tantalum (Ta) at up to 25%.

Both metals are highly saleable and are used in micro-electronic devices. On top of that potential, the combined REE (Rare Earth Element) content of the chip samples taken so far is up to an average of 3.5%. “Typical” REE mines operate at concentrations of 2-4% combined REE.

At this point the geology at Daicos is not sufficiently well known to draw any close geological parallels.

However the Nolan’s Bore deposit owned by Arafura Resources is located 135 km to the north west of Alice Springs. It contains a mineral resource of 18.6 million tonnes at 3.1% REE oxides, 14% P2O5 and 0.47 lb/tonne U3O8 (Goulevitch, 2006). The Nolan’s Bore deposit consists of a series of REE-bearing fluoro-apatite veins that are hosted mostly by granite gneiss3.

Thor intends to systematically examine where within the veins and country rock anomalous values occur, particularly in relation to the minerals present in the veins. It (and we) believe(s) that a petrographic examination of these samples is warranted. Scout drilling is also planned to determine the thickness and orientation of the pegmatitic veins, though given the time left in this year’s drilling season it is now unlikely that drills will turn on Hart’s Range projects this year.