Perth-based explorer Great Australian Resources Ltd has entered into an agreement to acquire a 50 per cent interest of Sydney-based nickel exploration company, Impact Mining Pty Ltd.
Perth-based explorer Great Australian Resources Ltd has entered into an agreement to acquire a 50 per cent interest of Sydney-based nickel exploration company, Impact Mining Pty Ltd.
Great Australian Resources, under the terms of the agreement, will commit to $2 million of exploration expenditure in the Morokweng Nickel project area, located in the Republic of South Africa.
In October, Joseph Cornelius was appointed as managing director of Great Australian Resources following the resignation of Tony Gates. The company also appointed Andrew Parker as a non-executive director.
In January, the company entered into an option agreement with New Zealand company Southwest Exploration to acquire a large gold project area on New Zealand's South Island within the Longwood Goldfields area.
The full announcement is below:
Great Australian Resources Ltd (GAU) is pleased to announce that it has entered into
a Heads of Agreement (HOA) with a Sydney based nickel exploration company,
Impact Mining Pty Ltd (IMPL). The HOA is subject to shareholders' approval and due
diligence.
Under the terms of the HOA, GAU will acquire a 50% interest in IMPL by committing
to $2m of exploration expenditure in the Morokweng Nickel project area, located in the
Republic of South Africa. Previous drilling on the project area has intersected
nickel intercepts grading up to 27% Nickel.
IMPL has an option to earn up to 74% in the Morokweng Nickel Project, located 425
km west of Johannesburg, in South Africa. The project area consists of a circular
aeromagnetic anomaly in the vicinity of the town of Morokweng (See Fig. 1). The
circular anomaly has been interpreted to be the result of a meteorite impact. A
similar mechanism is generally accepted to have formed the Sudbury Complex
(Ontario, Canada), which is one of the world's most productive nickel producing
areas.
The Sudbury Complex hosts the largest known concentration of nickel, copper
and platinum group element bearing sulphides.
To date, very little exploration work has been carried out over the project area. The
current tenement licence holders have only drilled 4 holes which returned very
anomalous results. The best drill intercept is 0.7m @ 27% Ni.
The existence of a circular geological structure up to 70 km in diameter, buried
beneath the Kalahari sands has been enigmatic to geologists working in the region.
Its meteoritic origin was only recognised in 1991 when scientists from the South
African Atomic Energy Corporation investigated the Geological Survey's borehole
cores. This led to the identification of exceptional concentrations of trace elements
and minerals displaying properties formed only at extreme pressures and
temperatures that are now almost universally accepted as the proof of a large
meteorite impact.
Morokweng is an exploration project targeting nickel-copper-PGM bearing massive
sulphide deposits, potentially located within and beneath the meteorite impact
structure. The impact structure with a core melt sheet of noritic composition is
interpreted to be about 25km in diameter and hosted by Archaean gneisses. The
conceptual exploration target is a tabular massive sulphide body.
The Morokweng structure is recognised as having potential economic benefits,
particularly as a number of meteorite impact craters are associated with economic
mineral resources, including world-class deposits. The most prominent among these
are the nickel-platinum-copper deposits at Sudbury, Canada. The Sudbury Igneous
Complex contains the world's largest nickel reserves and the district is one of the
worlds leading producers of nickel.
The Sudbury deposit was generated when an asteroid penetrated the Earth's crust,
causing a massive melt containing large quantities of metals which subsequently
crystallised into what is now described as massive sulphide deposits.
The geological analogies between the Sudbury and Morokweng impact structures
prompted preliminary exploration by the vendors with anomalous results displaying
potential for the discovery of Sudbury style orebodies. Preliminary drilling results
indicate the presence of base and precious metals mineralisation. From the 4 holes
drilled by the vendors to date, anomalous nickel, cobalt, platinum and palladium
values have been recorded.
Under the terms of the HOA, GAU will be represented with a position on IMPL's
Board.
The Company believes that the project area has great potential to host significant
nickel deposits. The Company is currently carrying out a full review and due diligence
studies on the project area.
If the due diligence studies are favourable, IMPL will immediately commence
aggressive exploration over the project area. Work will include airborne
electromagnetic surveys over the rims of the impact crater area, magnetic
interpretation, geochemical sampling, interpretation of remote sensing data and
reconnaissance geological mapping to delineate conductive sulphide targets for
drilling.