ASX-listed Venture Minerals has got the drill bit spinning at a new, high-priority rare earths and tin target at its flagship Mount Lindsay project in Tasmania after discovering a 1200m long soil anomaly at the site.
The company coined the prospect “Cruncher” and says it is laden with elevated doses of praseodymium and neodymium, materials critical in the construction of electric vehicles and wind turbines.
According to Venture, the rare earths anomaly is nestled within a larger boron soil anomaly that along with Cruncher is open to the north.
Boron is commonly used in the medical industry for applications such as eye drops and mild antiseptics however management says the mineral is also a strong indicator of tin mineralisation.
Notably, the Tasmanian government will contribute $50,000 to the first hole plunged at Cruncher as part of its Exploration Drilling Grant Initiative Program.
The discovery marks the company’s second rare earths hit at Mount Lindsay this year following the September detection of rare earths within the project’s Reward deposit about 1.3km west of Cruncher. Venture made the breakthrough after re-assaying shallow samples bagged within a clay zone at the operation.
A subsequent drill campaign yielded a suite of notable intercepts including 16.4 metres at 1028 parts per million total rare earth oxides, or “TREO” from 31.9m and 7.5m at 1287ppm TREO from a depth of just 2m.
Interestingly, the 16.4m strike also contained anomalous tin, a likely inclusion given the sample was acquired at the Reward deposit where Venture already has its foot on a half a million tonne resource grading 0.9 per cent tin.
Some of the longer hits from the September campaign at Reward include a 2.8m interval going 2486ppm TREO from 65.7m within a broader 19.3m parcel going 725ppm TREO from 64.2m. The intercept housed a richer 2.8m interval going 2486ppm TREO from 65.7m.
Highlights from another hole include 2m running 1770ppm TREO from 81 m.
Encouragingly, Venture believes Reward’s rare earths mineralisation is open in all directions and could be mined in combination with the site’s tin inventory.
Cruncher’s discovery adds another rare earths asset to the company’s burgeoning roster and follows a similar find at its Golden Grove North zinc-copper-gold project in WA’s Mid West a little over a week ago.
The find at Golden Grove sent Venture’s share price from a price of 0.022c. to a high of 0.033c. The price has since cooled to about 0.026c.
The discovery at Golden Grove was headlined by several samples running grades of over 1 per cent TREO with additional inclusions of praseodymium and neodymium oxide grading up to 5460 and 14,575ppm respectively.
Venture says its new rare earths target at Golden Grove is also supported by historical soil samples that were originally evaluated for volcanogenic massive sulfide-style mineralisation. However, upon closer inspection the samples returned anomalous hits of the rare earth elements lanthanum and cerium.
Venture Minerals Managing Director, Andrew Radonjic said:“Mount Lindsay has delivered Venture another Rare Earth opportunity with the Cruncher Target, opening up the Livingstone-Reward area with a second prospective zone running parallel to the host sequence of the Reward rare earths discovery.”
“With the 12.5% rare earths mineralisation discovered at Golden Grove North, the Company’s shareholders are now exposed to three Rare Earth prospects generated within the last couple of months and all within the Company’s existing projects.”
Venture's Mount Lindsay asset houses approximately 150 square kilometres of ground in Tasmania's north-west and is regarded as one of the world's most significant undeveloped tin prospects. The project holds about 81,000 tonnes of contained tin and a tungsten resource of about 3.2 million metric tonne units of tungsten trioxide.
After another rare earths find at Mount Lindsay and another at its Golden Grove North project in WA, Venture could be on course to re-invent itself as a key player in the new energy space.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Matt Birney
