17m cobalt strike for Artemis near Karratha

ASX listed Artemis Resources looks to be onto something quite significant near Karratha with the discovery of a 17m intersection going 0.61% cobalt.

With the battery metals exploration industry nearing fever pitch, cobalt is now knocking on the door of lithium as a must have mineral and Artemis appears to be an early mover in the space, consistently producing exceptional cobalt numbers at its Carlow Castle project near Karratha in W.A.

The latest discovery was made just east of the company’s Quod Est prospect at Carlow Castle and included the 17-metre drill intersection grading 1.86 grams per tonne gold, 0.05% copper and 0.61% cobalt from 88m down-hole.

This intersection incorporated an even higher-grade zone of 2m @ 9.02g/t gold, 2.42% cobalt and 0.03% copper from 89m.

These in-situ cobalt grades are some of the highest numbers around at the moment over long intersections and Artemis admits it doesn’t quite know yet what to make of the geology and mineralisation of this structurally complex, multi-commodity ore system.

Also this week, the company reported more wide, high-grade ore intercepts from infill and extensional drilling at the Carlow Castle South East and Carlow Castle South prospects.

At Carlow Castle South East, new results include a solid 33m, multi-commodity intersection going 2.68g/t gold, 0.28% cobalt and 2.11% copper from 117m down-hole, including 3m @ 14.83g/t gold, 1.04% cobalt and 5.95% copper from 138m.

Another shallow hole returned 37m @ 1.53g/t gold, 0.23% cobalt and 1.7% copper from 34m down-hole, incorporating 3m @ 8.21g/t gold, 0.57% cobalt and 5.78% copper from 65m.

One new drill hole intersection was also highly elevated in gold content, producing 15m @ 4.13g/t gold, 0.09% cobalt and 1.37% copper from 121m down-hole, which also showed 3m @ 8.21g/t gold, 0.13% cobalt and 2.66% copper from 124m.

At Carlow Castle South, two new intersections of strongly mineralised gold-cobalt-copper were reported in separate holes, including 7m @ 10.65g/t gold, 0.15% cobalt and 0.72% copper from 101m down-hole and 11m grading 5.12g/t gold, 0.43% cobalt and 2.07% copper from 109m down-hole.

Artemis CEO Wayne Bramwell said: “The latest drilling to the east of Quod Est has identified another high value zone of gold and cobalt mineralisation at Carlow Castle. The … results and the strong hits across the eastern end of Carlow continues to support our view that a much larger system exists.”

“This programme has set Artemis up well for a resource update in quarter 4 and post this release, additional drilling will be planned to define the controlling structures and the full scale of this exciting Au-Co-Cu deposit.”

Further drilling results are still pending from the ongoing program at Carlow Castle.

The project area covers the three main associated deposits at Quod Est, Carlow Castle South East and Carlow Castle South, which are located about 35km northeast of the company’s 100%-owned Radio Hill processing plant.

The deposits have distinct oxidised and fresh mineralised ore zones with elevated gold values and cobalt-copper ores locked up in sulphides identified as chalcopyrite, cobaltite, pyrite and chalcocite.

Artemis says that pure native copper in some samples reveals the presence of supergene enrichment in upper portions of the sulphide-rich ore zones.

The latest drilling has been focussed within a 1.2km by 4km mineralised trend defined by surface geophysics and anomalous soil geochemical results.

Initial mineral resource estimates will concentrate around the three main deposits being drilled as part of the current campaign at the Carlow Castle project, to about 200m vertical depth.

Artemis are now pumping out impressive numbers at Carlow Castle seemingly at will and where this exciting project will finish up is anybody’s guess.

With impressive cobalt, gold and copper numbers, it is also uncertain which will end up being the principal mineral to be mined and which will end up with credit status – a very nice problem to have no doubt.