West Perth-based minerals explorer Niagra Mining Ltd has acquired the Woodline Well nickel sulphide project from Perth-based minerals explorer Perilya Ltd, in a move Niagra says will complement its exploration and development strategy.
West Perth-based minerals explorer Niagra Mining Ltd has acquired the Woodline Well nickel sulphide project from Perth-based minerals explorer Perilya Ltd, in a move Niagra says will complement its exploration and development strategy.
The full text of a Niagra announcement is pasted below
The Company is pleased to inform shareholders that it has acquired the Woodline Well Nickel Sulphide Project from Perilya Limited which is located approximately 10km west of the Windarra Nickel Project. The transaction with Perilya will compliment the company's exploration and development strategy for the Windarra district.
The Company has also extended a right for Perilya to examine data on the zinc prospectivity of the Windarra Project area with a view of a possible JV arrangement.
The Woodline Well project is located 23km west of Laverton, in the Eastern Goldfields of Western Australia, on the western flank of the Mt Margaret Anticline. The project comprises three prospecting licences, totalling 359ha.
The majority of the western flank of the Mt Margaret Anticline is assimilated by granite and the Woodline Well area is considered to contain a remnant outlier of Mt Windarra ultramafic greenstone stratigraphy on the basis of a strong aeromagnetic anomaly associated with a footwall BIF below the Windarra ultramafic sequence.
Significant nickel values were returned from the project area, in drilling by previous explorers, from a disseminated pentlanditeviolaritepyrrhotite mineral suite within a black, serpentinised olivine peridotite. Drilling intersected 3.1m at 2.3% nickel and 6.1m at 3.0% nickel in percussion hole PDH1 and 0.9m at 4.3% nickel in diamond hole DDH1.
Aeromagnetics suggest the presence of additional ultramafic lithologies that have yet to receive any testing. Woodline Well was discovered as the fortuitous result of a gossan search and near total sand cover has meant that its geological setting is not well understood, being based on a limited area of shallow auger drilling and magnetic interpretation. Outside of the small area that has received the bulk of the deeper drilling, the host ultramafic has been only lightly tested, if at all. The presence of near surface economic grades of nickel mineralisation, some of it primary, warrants further investigation.
There are no outcropping ultramafic rocks within the Woodline Well project. The geology is interpreted from shallow collapsed costeans, old auger, percussion and diamond core drill logs, and Perilya's RC drilling. Two thin northwest-trending, steeply northeast-dipping, ultramafic units are noted in the main drill area. The southern ultramafic is a 10-20m thick dunite unit that hosts the significant nickel drill intercepts. To the north of the dunite is a 10m thick amphibolite unit. The ultramafic package is surrounded by a complex mixed package of gneissic metasediments (including sulphidic BIF to the north) and interfingered granite layers.
The only outcrop in the project area is a small hill of gabbro in the southeast.
Significant nickel values were returned, in drilling by previous explorers, from a fine-grained disseminated pentlanditeviolaritepyrrhotite mineral suite within a black, medium to coarse-grained serpentinised olivine peridotite, with well-preserved bladed olivine crystals. Drilling intersected 3.1m at 2.3% nickel from 12.2m and 6.1m at 3.0% nickel (including 1.5m at 3.9%nickel) from 18.3m in percussion hole PDH1 and 0.9m at 4.3% nickel (including 0.15m at 7.2% nickel) from 59.7m in diamond hole DDH1.
A fixed loop EM survey, by Perilya, showed a weak anomaly associated with the known mineralisation. Four RC drill holes did not intersect significant mineralisation, but did show the host ultramafic was open, and untested, to the northwest. The EM survey, which covered only a part of the Woodline Well project, also shows other weak anomalies that have not been followed up. A large early-time EM anomaly in the southeast of the project has been interpreted as current channelling on a loop edge (an artefact of the programme), however it may also represent deeper weathering or a shallow dipping conductor.
Aeromagnetics suggest there is additional strike of ultramafic lithology that has yet to receive any testing within the project.
A review made the following observations:
- The facing of the komatiite sequence is not known. Analogy with Mt. Windarra and South Windarra suggests the northeastern edge to be footwall (hence southwest-facing), but the gossan samples from an old costean show the southwestern side of the komatiite to be anomalous in nickel and copper, indicative of nickel sulphides. Determining the facing direction is crucial to establishing the komatiite volcanology for Woodline Well.
- The komatiite contacts may not be intact igneous contacts, rather the result of granite assimilation. This has implications for the preservation of nickel sulphides on the preferred footwall contact.
- The old diamond logs do not make it clear if the nickel sulphides are in their original igneous position or have been remobilised.
- The plunge of the nickel sulphide mineralisation is not known. A northwest-plunge is still possible (Figure 3).
An external assessment found:
- The dunite lithology intersected in drillholes PDH1 and DDH1 is similar to the mineralised komatiite sequences at Mt. Windarra and South Windarra;
- Nickel sulphides of up to 1m @ 4.23% Ni are the best indication of the prospectivity of the komatiite sequence;
- The plunge direction to the north, beneath and to the north of drillhole PDH1, remains open;
- TEM anomalies which can be successfully modeled as bedrock conductors related to the prospective komatiite, may represent accumulations of massive nickel sulphides;
- A bedrock geochemical anomaly of 1000ppm Ni and 290ppm Cu, located in komatiites along strike to the south, remains untested.
The consultant concluded that the komatiite sequence at Woodline Well possessed very high potential for hosting accumulations of massive nickel sulphides similar in style to, but smaller than, Mt Windarra and South Windarra.
The Company looks forward to continue developing its exploration a development strategy for the Windarra Nickel Project.