Junior exploration company, Tambourah Metals has put its foot on an additional 381.5 square kilometres of exploration tenure prospective for copper, gold, nickel and platinum group element, or “PGE” mineralisation in the Julimar region of Western Australia.
The new tenure in the celebrated Julimar region consists of three adjoining exploration licences to be collectively named the ‘Wongan Hills South project’. Tambourah is set to acquire 80 per cent of Wongan Hills South, subject to shareholder approval.
The company’s landholding in the area is now set to cover a whopping 780 square kilometres with the new ground that is also very close to Caravel Minerals’ namesake copper project where a massive 1.86 million tonnes of contained copper has been delineated.
The project lies along significant regional magnetic structures with numerous mineral deposits and prospects located in its vicinity.
Caravel has defined a head-turning 662 million tonne low grade resource going 0.28 per cent copper at its namesake project, with more than 30,000 metres of subsequent drilling yet to be incorporated into an updated resource estimate.
Caravel believes it has its hands on one of the largest undeveloped copper projects in Australia with current resources already large enough to potentially support a 25-year plus mining operation.
Tambourah says historical exploration at Wongan Hills South was primarily focused on Boddington and Griffin Finds style gold mineralisation, with other metals such as copper, nickel and PGEs largely overlooked. The project is also prospective for zinc, lead, silver and molybdenum, according to the company.
Tambourah plans to target copper-gold and nickel-PGE mineralisation at the new tenure with exploration works to be incorporated into future work programs across its broader 780 square kilometre landholding in the Julimar region.
Management says a compilation of historical exploration data at Wongan Hills South has already commenced, whilst electromagnetic surveys to define high-priority targets are also on the agenda.
The company plans to run electromagnetic surveys at its Julimar tenure early next year in anticipation of subsequent drilling campaigns.
Tambourah has already launched an airborne gravity survey across its underexplored Bolgar East and Tolarno tenements in the region. The survey is looking to identify ultramafic rocks prospective for nickel, copper and PGE mineralisation similar to Chalice Mining’s spectacular Gonneville discovery, only 38km from Bolgar East.
The Gonneville discovery hole last year returned 19 metres at 2.6 per cent nickel, 1 per cent copper, 8.4 grams per tonne palladium and 1.1 g/t platinum from 48m, sending Chalice’s share price soaring from less than $0.20 to as high as $9.34 after the discovery.
According to Tambourah, airborne gravity surveys are a proven exploration method for identifying ultramafic rocks that could potentially host nickel, copper and PGE mineralisation.
The company will look to use the survey data to generate a model where the targeted dense rocks will appear visually distinct from the surrounding less dense rocks.
Tambourah only recently pocketed a hearty $8 million following a strongly supported initial public offering for its listing on the ASX. Having now doubled its tenure in one of the hottest bits of geological real-estate in the nation, the cashed-up explorer appears well placed to accelerate its hunt for the next major mineral discovery in the coveted Julimar region of Western Australia.
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By Matt Birney
