ASX-listed Reach Resources is gearing up for an exploration blitz across its Gascoyne tenements following the immediate appointment of experienced geologist Steve Vallance as the company’s Exploration Manager.
The explorer recently acquired the Morrissey Hill lithium project, the Camel Hill rare earths project and the White Castles manganese project located in and around existing exploration hotspots in the region.
The three projects cover a total of four tenements and build on the company’s two established operations with the Skyline and Critical Elements projects in the Gascoyne.
Reach says Vallance has over 35 years’ experience across a range of commodities including nickel, lithium, manganese and gold with a track record of building strong and cohesive exploration teams. He also worked as Chief Exploration Geologist with Jubilee Mines for almost 10 years and co-lead the discovery of several major nickel sulphide deposits that ultimately led to the $3.3 billion takeover by Xstrata Nickel.
However, the company believes Vallance’s recent work with lithium and manganese exploration give Reach the technical exploration expertise it needs to investigate its Morrisey Hill lithium and White Castles manganese projects.
Reach Resources Chief Executive Officer, Jeremy Bower said: “We have recently completed transformative acquisitions to dramatically increase our land holding in arguably one of the country’s hottest emerging critical minerals regions and with Steve’s appointment we now have a highly experienced geologist to lead our exploration programs.”
Geological consultants are currently preparing a targeting report of the company’s projects and Vallance’s first task will be to conduct a detailed review in order to design exploration programs for each of Reach’s Gascoyne sites.
Three of the company’s four recently acquired tenements share a border with existing Reach projects that its says increases the ability to explore entire mineral strike lengths and provides greater contiguous area for potential future development.
Last month Reach received high-grade manganese results in addition to impressive heavy rare earths oxide assays from its wholly-owned Critical Elements project. The company recently completed a rock chip sampling program across its Skyline project with results including a significant 11 per cent manganese from one sample at the Critical Elements project.
Reach also tabled impressive grades of 6.78 per cent niobium oxide and 3.71 per cent tantalum oxide from samples at the explorer’s Wabli Creek tenement that forms part of the Critical Elements project. The latest results show all three of the company’s original tenements in the Gascoyne region have highlighted anomalous total rare earth oxides, or “TREO” greater than 500 ppm up to a maximum grade of 2.57 per cent TREO.
Of the recently acquired tenements, the Morrissey Hill lithium project appears to be prime real estate sitting next to Red Dirt Metals’ Yinnetharra lithium project that Red Dirt purchased for a combined cash and scrip deal worth about $25 million in September last year.
Reach says Morrissey Hill is host to historical high-grade lithium, tantalum, rubidium, cesium and niobium and has returned rock chip samples that included 1.32 per cent lithium oxide, 3.62 per cent tantalum oxide, 1936 parts-per-million rubidium, 2276 ppm cesium and 1.55 per cent niobium oxide. The site also hosts widespread pegmatite outcrops with a similar geology to Yinnetharra.
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By Matt Birney
