After setting out in search of lithium and gold, Kula Gold fired a second volley of auger holes into its Rankin Dome project in WA’s Southern Cross region and struck a welcome cluster of rare earth elements. The program uncovered some impressive results across the tenure with 70 per cent of the 375 samples registering more than 115ppm total rare earth elements with two samples peaking at 1080ppm.
A further 17 samples returned total rare earth values exceeding 450ppm.
Sampling was conducted at 50m intervals along 400m spaced lines at the interface of transported material and weathered bedrock.
Notably, the prospect was virgin territory with no surface geochemistry or drilling before Kula arrived.
The revelation of rare earths was not totally surprising to the explorer as ASX-listed Krakatoa Resources, Frontier Resources and Lynas Rare Earths have also all taken up rare earths holdings within the Yilgarn craton.
Lynas holds the world-class Mt Weld mine – 420km to the northeast of Kula – where it tabled a mineral resource back in 2018 of 55.4 million tonnes at an average grade of 5.4 per cent total rare earth oxide for 3Mt of contained total rare earths oxide.
Interestingly, Lynas hails its deposit as “one of the highest grade rare earth deposits in the world”.
Given the broader region’s known potential for rare earths, Kula decided to analyse its samples for an extended array of elements, with the results identifying elevated rare earth concentrations from two potential host sources.
With success achieved in the second round of drilling, Kula has resubmitted pulps from its initial first phase of auger drilling conducted late last year for gold and lithium and is eager to see if they may also yield rare earths results.
The latest auger holes were drilled with the intention of testing the orientation and extent of the low-level gold anomalism uncovered in the first phase. Whilst not hitting the bullseye of its original gold and lithium target, given the mad rush of attention that rare earths are garnering these days, Kula appears to have a new equally lucrative opportunity at Rankin Dome.
Rare earths are key ingredients in the components of many emerging technologies in the clean energy revolution. In particular, they are highly sought after for use in industrial magnets along with uses in laser technology and other applications in the energy and defence sectors.
Lynas says a 3-megawatt direct drive turbine can use up to two tonnes of rare earth permanent magnets and that the wind turbine market is expected to account for about 30 per cent of the global growth in the use of rare earths from 2015 to 2025.
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