Terrain Minerals has unleashed the drill rigs at its Smokebush project in Western Australia’s Mid West region as it tests for lithium in pegmatites at the operation with an 11-hole reverse-circulation (RC) campaign over 900m.
The company has prioritised seven of the 11 pegmatites identified at the site, which range from about 10m to 15m in width and 200m in length, before shifting undercover in about a 4km area.
Results from rock-chip samples reported last month in two areas between Smokebush’s Monza and Paradise City prospects returned up to 200 parts per million lithium oxide. The pegmatites appear to be travelling away from the Mt Mulgine granite intrusive that sits immediately west of Terrain’s tenements before fanning out and onto its land.
Management argues the geology of the area is predominantly comprised of a complexly-folded regionally-metamorphosed Archaean greenstone sequence at the southern end of the Yalgoo Singleton Greenstone Belt that has been subjected to multi-phase granitoid intrusion.
Terrain entered a farm-in joint venture at Smokebush in 2019, but now wholly-owns the project, which is about 350 kilometres north of Perth and 85km east/north-east of Perenjori in the Mid West. The project’s five prospecting and exploration licences cover about 1254 hectares within the Yalgoo Mineral Field.
The company has previously identified multiple drill targets and other prospective areas at Smokebush, where its maiden RC drill program was conducted in August, 2020 to follow up on historic drilling. Grades include 2 metres at 11.3 grams per tonne gold from 70m and 2m at 9.2g/t from 24m.
Gold has taken something of a back seat at Terrain in recent times with attention focused on its lithium and rare earths potential after the company discovered pegmatite swarms late last year in Smokebush’s so-called “Goldilocks zone”.
But management notes previous drilling at its Monza target appears to have established a possible relationship between the increased occurrence of sulphide mineralisation and higher-recorded gold grades.
Paradise City is 4km south of Monza and the company believes it boasts geological similarities. The deposit has previously returned a 3m intersection at 2.17g/t gold from 10m and many high-grade rock-chip samples going as high as 49.27g/t gold have also been reported.
While gold has a strong presence in WA’s Mid West, if Terrain can return significant results from its pegmatite drill campaign at Smokebush, it will give the company another solid string to its bow.
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By Michael Philipps
