Junior gold and rare earths explorer Meeka Gold Limited has confirmed the presence of rare earths mineralisation with wide hits grading above 1000 parts per million total rare earths oxides, or “TREO” from aircore drilling completed in 2021 at the company’s Circle Valley project in the Albany-Fraser mobile belt in southwest WA.
The aircore chips were initially only tested for gold however handheld XRF analysis displayed elevated rare earths spurring on a multi-element re-assay that confirmed the mineralisation.
Broad zones of rare earths mineralisation intersected in the 2021 aircore drilling include a 12 metre hit grading 1003ppm TREO from 28m downhole, 4m going 1177ppm TREO from 36m and 1m at a cracking 1521ppm TREO from 20m.
Other notable intersections returned from Circle Valley include 4m at 1040ppm TREO from 36m downhole and 4m grading 877ppm TREO from 48m downhole.
Importantly, 13 of the 14 holes drilled returned grades above 300ppm TREO that the company says highlights the widespread potential for rare earth mineralisation at the project.
An average length weighted grade for all samples that ran above 300ppm TREO was calculated to get a better indication of the prospectivity of the mineralised zones and gave up a solid average of 652ppm TREO.
Drill holes across various geological domains and weathering profiles were selected for multi-element re-assay to assess the potential for mineralisation across the entirety of the Circle Valley project.
Meeka says thicker zones of rare earths enrichment appear to be coinciding with geophysical magnetic lows observed in the airborne magnetic data suggesting either a deeper regolith profile or a structurally controlled feature. Rare earths mineralisation is often concentrated in the upper regolith profile above the fresh rock and can also be concentrated in areas with structural deformation, so either result would be conducive for Meeka.
In addition to elevated rare earths mineralisation, assay results show anomalous scandium grades. Results show maximum scandium grade of 63ppm and a length weighted average grade of 18ppm for all samples that corresponded to total rare earths grades above 300ppm TREO.
Meeka Gold Limited Chief Executive Officer, Tim Davidson said: “Gold exploration continues to be our focus at Circle Valley, and based on the work we have done to date we have a view that there is a large gold system driving the anomalism we are seeing in the drilling results. Having said that, the geology team identified some interesting rare earth elements in the handheld XRF data, which we have now confirmed through laboratory analysis to be broad zones of mineralisation.”
Whilst the company is keeping its primary focus on its WA based gold projects – Meeka will be welcoming the addition of rare earths to its portfolio given the recent surges in price coinciding with increased global push towards an electrified economy.
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By Matt Birney
