Todd River Resources has kicked off a highly anticipated round of drilling at its Berkshire Valley nickel-PGE find in WA. Aircore drilling has now commenced in earnest at the central project area where Todd River is targeting a series of geophysical anomalies that also exhibit a pronounced nickel, copper and platinum group element anomalism at surface. The anomalism extends along an impressive 5 kilometres of strike.
The company has defined four key targets along the prospective looking Western Trend in the Berkshire Valley, with exploration having outlined strong nickel-PGE mineralisation associated with key mafic-ultramafic intrusions within the underlying rock strata. Todd River will undertake first-pass testing of these targets utilising systematic drilling and management expects to complete the program in mid-May.
Todd River’s move into deeper drilling in WA comes hot on the heels of its recent shallow auger drilling program across the Berkshire project area. The auger program was designed to test a bevy of new geophysical targets to the north of the aircore drilling area, in addition to undertaking first-pass sampling along the unexplored Eastern Trend.
The company’s Berkshire Valley project is located 150km to the north-east of Perth and immediately to the east of the wheat-belt town of Moora in Western Australia. The project is situated in the same geological terrane as Chalice Mining’s stunning Julimar nickel-PGE discovery and covers a string of mafic-ultramafic intrusions that stretch along an impressive 40km of strike.
Todd River says the project area is highly prospective for intrusive-style nickel-copper-PGE mineralisation similar in style to both the Julimar discovery and recent discoveries in the Fraser Range, including the Nova-Bollinger nickel mine and Legend Mining’s budding Mawson nickel discovery.
Curiously, previous exploration over the Berkshire Valley project appears to have concentrated on the gold bearing potential of the region and has barely scratched the surface of the emerging base metal terrane. Work by the likes of IGO Ltd has been largely confined to shallow auger and roadside drilling, however this exploration has proven a useful foundation for Todd River’s developing work program. IGO’s work outlined a broad envelope of nickel-copper-PGE mineralisation along the Western Trend which shows a strong association with the underlying mafic-ultramafic intrusions.
Nickel-copper-PGE anomalism in the southern project area stretches over more than 8km of strike, with recent moving loop electromagnetic surveying over the geochemical targets returning a subtle anomaly over the main nickel-PGE anomaly, potentially indicating a deeper sulphide source to the weathered mineralisation near surface.
With Todd River patiently waiting for the results from its regional auger program in the Berkshire Valley and aircore drilling of key targets now underway, punters can expect a flow of results in the weeks ahead as this new nickel-PGE terrane north of Perth continues to take shape.
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