Lycaon sweats on West Arunta niobium assays

With the critical minerals boom in full swing Lycaon Resources is eagerly awaiting a suite of niobium assay results from a drill campaign at its Stansmore niobium-rare earths project in Western Australia’s West Arunta region.

The company is looking to identify anomalous pathfinder and trace elements that will demonstrate potential for its targeted 500m diameter magnetic intrusive feature to host critical metals mineralisation.

Samples have been dispatched to Perth for analysis with the results expected within 15-25 days after receipt by the laboratory.

The drill program homed-in on a regionally prominent 500m magnetic feature, which management believes may be prospective for niobium-rare earths carbonatites, iron-oxide-copper-gold deposits or intrusion-related gold and copper.

The program was designed to test the centre peak of an intriguing batch of magnetic anomalies at the company’s three high-priority targets – Stansmore, Volt and Ions.

The recent drilling plunged 320m into the main section of the Stansmore anomaly, which is modelled as a pipelike body about 500m in diameter, from a depth of 120m, dipping to the south.

Management believes it is similar to other significant discoveries, such as Newmont Mining’s giant 8-million-ounce Havieron gold-copper deposit in WA’s Paterson Range or Evolution Mining’s Ernst Henry copper-gold operation, discovered in Proterozoic-aged ground.

The company’s Volt and Ions prospects show two discrete anomalies across a 3km-wide zone that sit on the edge of a broad high that may represent part of an intrusive carbonatite.

Volt and Ion sit in the northwest corner of the main license area.

Management says its project also has three promising secondary targets – Edi, Earl and Menlo – that may be prospective for similar mineral systems as the Stansmore, Volt and Ions prospects.

Recently, Lycaon engaged a geophysical expert to help target mineralisation at Stansmore.

The geophysical review, undertaken by industry expert Terry Hoschke, involved the reprocessing of magnetic data and a 3D inversion model of the data to better prepare the company’s targeting of drillholes for the maiden program.

Hoschke recently worked with Encounter Resources, which, along with neighbouring WA1 Resources, discovered high-grade niobium within its West Arunta prospects.

Lycaon Resources technical director Thomas Langley said: “As we have seen with WA1’s and Encounter’s recent drill results in the region, this area has proven to have a very good strike rate of success in drilling regionally significant geophysical anomalies like our Stansmore target.”

The company was successful recently in obtaining a cash boost after securing a WA Government exploration incentive scheme co-funding grant up to a maximum of $180,000 to assist with drilling at Stansmore.

The initiative was launched in 2009 to encourage exploration in WA and to trigger private sector resource exploration for new mineral and energy discoveries – largely at depth.

Prior to the latest drill program, only been limited drilling has occurred at Lycaon’s site.

BHP Minerals completed six rotary air-blast (RAB) holes in 1983, targeting a diamond discovery at the Stansmore prospect, however it only drilled to a maximum depth of 12m and did not test the magnetic anomaly that starts at 150m.

Lycaon’s 100 per cent-owned Stansmore project ground extends across 173 square kilometres and three exploration licences about 90km north of WA1’s stunning Luni-P2 niobium discoveries.

WA1 was one of the biggest sharemarket gainers during the past two years after its head-turning Luni discovery in 2022 that led to an extraordinary share price jump from 14c to touch a high of $23.20 in May this year.

Both WA1 and Encounter identified niobium and rare earths mineralisation associated with a carbonatite intrusive in their respective first drill programs, signifying the prospective nature of the West Arunta region.

Lycaon will be hoping its assay results show it is also on a similar path to success.

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