An infill and extension drilling campaign by Pinnacle Minerals at the Capel project in Western Australia’s south-west region has intersected broad and shallow zones of heavy mineral sands from the surface.
The company completed 95 holes of aircore drilling for a total of 2,067 metres at the brownfield project with the aim of defining an ilmenite (titanium ore) dominated resource.
Drilling was designed to test wide-spaced results reported in 2010 by Iluka Resources and achieved strong intercepts over an interpreted trend of up to 3 kilometres.
First assays
The first batch of assays returned a best result of 13.1% heavy minerals (HM) over 1m from 19m downhole.
Other results included 3.4% HM over 7m from 16m downhole, including 2m at 7.9% HM and 3.0% HM over 5m from 19m downhole.
The samples will be subject to sachet scanning of the sink material to analyse the valuable HM fraction and the mineral assemblage.
Results are expected to guide further studies on the Capel project.
Modelling validated
Pinnacle managing director Nic Matich said drilling had intersected the younger of two historical mineralised trends and validated the modelling conducted by the company.
“Our initial assays have borne early fruit, with moderate-grade strandline mineralisation intercepted over 3km,” he said.
“The grade and thickness of these results are a positive sign that Capel has the potential for a shallow mineral resource to be defined over a broad area.”
WA’s south-west is a well-known HM region with several large deposits currently being mined by global companies including Iluka, Doral and global titanium chemicals producer Tronox.
Previous ownership
The Capel project was previously held by Tronox, which has a $3 million market capitalisation.
Regional-scale exploration conducted in 2010 by Iluka discovered moderate-grade HM from the surface on several drill lines.
Best results included 21m at 3.3% HM, 21m at 2.6% HM and 18m at 2.2% HM—all from the surface.
Mr Matich said the tenement had potential for defining cohesive mineralisation at a more local scale.
