Today I’ll be presenting a little bit of geology and a whole heap of what we in the business technically refer to as ‘Arm Waving’ (aka rampant speculation) about unrealised potential at Ngualla. **Queue dramatic music In the beginning…… Ngualla started off as a volcano or at least an intrusive complex with molten rock penetrating up through overlying strata to the surface. Note that the rough geology I’m going to use is based on a geological map released in a PEK announcement on the 04/02/2010 (see below).
The below image displays the volcano and the ‘palaeo-topography’ which is equivalent to the surface of the rock at time of eruption. Note that this surface has since been eroded away over hundreds of millions of years. The modern day equivalent surface of the earth is indicated by the orange line.
The volcano was quiet for a while and then a second eruption occurred, with a new phase of the carbonatite intruding the first.
After a further period of geological inactivity a third eruption burst upward through the previous two intrusions.
Finally a very late stage of eruptive activity occurred depositing a relatively skinny central core intrusion
Over the next many millions of years the carbonatite was eroded away to the level that we see it today.
Or from above it looks like this.
So why have I made you sit through this geology lesson? If we overlay my resource estimate over the top of the known geology spatial associations begin to emerge.
For simplicity we can ignore the spatial context of the SWA (South West Alluvial) because this material has actually been eroded from the SREZ (Southern Rare Earth Zone) and deposited in the valley where it sits today. Removing the SWA this from the image It becomes apparent that the SREZ coincides with the stage 4 core intrusive.
The below image shows the 3.0 REO cut off envelope again showing the spatial relationship with the outline of intrusive 4.
This core zone measures approximately 960m long and is 590m wide. The surface area of this irregular shape is 207210 m2.
So if I cookie-cut my resource estimate from map view using the margins of the core intrusive I get a voxet shape like this.
If we switch to a cross section view (facing west) of this block you can see the top of the core mineralisation is enriched in rare earth comparable to the lower zone. This is the weathered carbonatite zone that is high grade because the soluble gangue material has been leached away leaving naturally REO upgraded ore.
What I find particularly interesting about this area is the grade at the bottom of drill holes in the 'fresh' central core. Referring to the results published in various announcements it would appear that the ‘fresh’ (unweathered) carbonatite core grades between 1-1.5% REO. This is very high for carbonatites and opens the door to explotiation of the fresh material some day.
If grade is consistent in the fresh rock they we can use geology to interpolate the resource deeper into the ground at this fresh grade (assumed a mean average of 1.25%). Working on the exposed surface area of the core intrusive being 207210 m2 I’ve calculated how much the resource could be increased with every 20meters depth. 207210*20 = 4144200 m3 4144200 * 2.4 g/cc = 9946080 tonnes 9.946080 Mt @ 1.25% REO = 0.12 MT contained REO
This equates to 0.6MT contained REO for every 100m depth (White Lines).
How deep does it go?? Who knows?? I’m hoping that PEK management will be planning some deep holes this coming field season which will be able to test the geometry and continuity in grade for the core zone.
Now lets not get into an argument about what this is worth financially as by the time we get to mining this stuff we will all be dead and buried. I just wanted to point out massive tonnage upside to potential investors and why one day we may truly claim the title of the worlds biggest REO deposit.
PEK Price at posting:
46.1¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
(20min delay)