Lycaon locks in driller for maiden West Arunta assault

Lycaon Resources is a step closer to launching a maiden drill campaign at its fully-owned Stansmore polymetallic play in Western Australia’s prospective West Arunta region after locking in a drilling contractor for the work.

The company has appointed Subiaco-based Topdrill, which it describes as an experienced local operator, just a day after confirming final heritage and works permit approvals that have paved the way for it to begin drilling early next month.

The heritage clearance survey, which was completed in July, relates to the company’s three priority Stansmore, Volt and Ions targets in the northern half of its tenement area where it is hoping to sniff out niobium, rare earths and iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG).

The targets are dimensionally the biggest of Lycaon’s six identified magnetic signatures recommended by Southern Geoscience Consultants (SGC) following a detailed review of available data, which was later subjected to further assessment by independent geophysical expert Terry Hoschke.

Hoschke’s independent review homed in on the recommended targets and subjected them to reprocessing and 3D inversion enhancement, which exploited the best publicly-available airborne magnetic data for the area, which was flown in about 2010 on 200m-spaced north-to-south lines, with a nominal terrain clearance of about 50m.

The most prominent target, Stansmore, showed up initially in geophysics as a 700m-by-400m ovoid anomaly estimated to sit at about 150m below surface. The later 3D inversion review improved the resolution of the Stansmore signature and depicts it as a south-dipping, pipe-like body measuring about 500m in diameter, with its top estimated to lie at a depth of about 120m below surface.

The refinement means Lycaon can now confidently aim at probing the main body about 200m below its interpreted top and is therefore planning to punch the drill rods through it at about 320m depth.

Lycaon Resources technical director Tom Langley said: “The geophysical modelling shows the Stansmore magnetic anomaly as a pipe-like body 500m in diameter. This is not dissimilar to the other niobium discoveries in the region made by WA1 Resources and Encounter Resources. And as we have seen with those companies’ recent drill results in the region, this area has proven to have a very good strike rate of success in drilling regionally-significant geophysical anomalies like our Stansmore target.”

The program, which is slated to run for three weeks, will not only be the company’s first drilling at Stansmore, but also the most significant drilling at the site since 1983.

Back then, BHP Minerals bored a handful of shallow rotary air-blast (RAB) drillholes to a maximum depth of 12m into the ovoid Stansmore magnetic anomaly as part of its diamond search. However, the BHP work failed to identify any diamond-hosting characteristics and resulted in the ground being relinquished the following year.

Lycaon’s initial interpretations suggest its targets have the potential to contain a broad range of commodities and management says it plans to analyse for niobium and rare earths mineralisation. It will also assess signatures relating to IOCG-style deposits, for which BHP’s giant Olympic Dam deposit in South Australia is commonly cited as a classic example.

The company has made a successful application under the WA Government’s exploration incentive scheme (EIS) for a co-funding grant of up to $180,000 for two proposed drillholes designed by SGC to test its Stansmore and Volt targets.

Following the upcoming program, Lycaon’s future planning will be dependent on results from the early holes, which it hopes will enable it to join WA1 and Encounter by establishing a third maiden program discovery in the virgin and increasingly-popular terrain. 

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