Junior explorer Godolphin Resources will soon test the limits of its newly acquired Narraburra rare earths project about 15km north of Temora in central west NSW after securing government approval to launch a four-hole diamond probe. According to the company, the looming campaign is intended to sniff out mineralisation across a suite of prospective zones.
After being waved through by the NSW resources regulator, Godolphin says it could launch its program as early as next month, with portable XRF assays announced shortly thereafter, followed by a more robust suite of results courtesy of a laboratory-based multi‐element assay analysis.
Core samples pulled from the diamond probe will be fed into a number of studies, including a bulk density estimation, flow path analyses and additional metallurgical test work ahead of a planned scoping study.
Godolphin management says the 4 hole diamond campaign will be followed by a 4000m air core program that will serve to scrub up the operations current mineral resource estimate up to a JORC 2012 standard.
Earlier work at Narraburra by previous explorer Capital Mining Limited delivered a JORC 2004-compliant inferred resource of 73.2 million tonnes, with grades of 1250 grams per tonne zirconium dioxide, 327 g/t rare earth oxides, 146 g/t yttrium oxide, 126 g/t niobium pentoxide, 54 g/t gallium oxide and 118 g/t lithium oxide.
Godolphin picked up the ground after entering into a two-tranche farm-in and joint venture agreement with private exploration group EX9 for up to 75 per cent of the project.
The deal takes in two tenements totalling 349 square kilometres, with rare earths mineralisation thought to be hosted in a Late Devonian age sequence of rocks.
The move to pick up the ground came after a full-scale review of its project portfolio and an evaluation of the region’s potential to host economic concentrations of rare earth minerals.
Godolphin says the Lachlan Fold Belt in NSW, which houses Narraburra, offers an exemplary address for rare earth projects, with the area seeing a strong line of support by the Federal Government in recent times.
Rare earths linked with the Devonian Age Narraburra Granite were identified at Narraburra for the first time in 1999. The project was eventually earmarked as one of Australia's most significant zirconium, rare earths and rare metals deposits, with high-grade lithium mineralisation also discovered on the district's outskirts.
The region has seen a flurry of exploration since its discovery, including airborne magnetic and radiometric surveying, geological mapping, ground radiometric surveying, mineralogical studies, preliminary metallurgical test work and RC drilling.
Rare earths are used across a range of applications including the production of metal alloys, electronics, petroleum refining, medical imaging and to craft speciality glasses, however in recent times the element has been pushed to the forefront of the new energy revolution with its use in the production of electric vehicles.
China currently controls about 80 per cent of the world’s rare earths supply and Godolphin, along with other Australian-based miners are looking to pry away some of this control with a suite of rapidly progressing operations.
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By Matt Birney
