A further two zones of sulphide mineralisation have been intercepted in just the second hole drilled by Mamba Resources at its Black Hills project.
This is significant, given that the project lies just 30km from the world class nickel-copper-platinum group elements discovery at Julimar, owned by Chalice Mining in Western Australia.
Black Hills is near the town of Bolgart, which is 100km northeast of Perth.
The second hole drilled at the project has returned 1.14m of disseminated sulphides at above 5% sulphide from 113m. Then from 148.4m, the drill bit intersected 3.95m of semi-massive to heavily disseminated sulphides.
Four broad sulphide zones in third hole
A third hole from the program intersected four zones consisting of 2.6m (at more than 15% sulphide), 2.6m of disseminated sulphides, 7.5m of heavily disseminated sulphides (more than 12% sulphide) and 3.3m of disseminated sulphides
The sulphide zones intercepted correspond with the locations modelled from electro-magnetic conductors.
Mamba managing director Mike Dunbar says downhole surveys have been completed on all three holes drilled so far with initial analysis confirming that the massive, semi-massive and net textured sulphides are, indeed, are the conductors being targeted.
“The results for the first hole have confirmed that the main sulphides are pyrrhotite and pyrite, with only low-level anomalism identified from the initial sampling,” he added.
Previous drilling at Black Hills just for gold
In 1995 CRA Exploration — the field arm of what is now Rio Tinto— conducted drilling at Black Hills which was designed to test for gold.
Some 26 holes were drilled returning grades up to 1.37 grams per tonne gold.
Then, between 2011 and 2013 the former Fox Resources conducted rock chip sampling, with assays including 1,720 parts per million nickel and 1,610ppm copper.
Next target is Hyden REE
Mr Dunbar said that, with the Black Hills program completed, Mamba’s attention will turn to the Hyden rare earths project where modelling is nearly finished.
In November the company entered into an option agreement to purchase 100% of the rare earth element rights across four exploration licences near the town of Hyden in Western Australia.
What the company described as “exceptionally high-grade” cover an area of 561 square kilometres of predominantly broad acreage grain farms in the wheatbelt region.
