After kicking off an exploration drilling campaign chasing auriferous rocks in the gold-rich state of Nevada, USA, Perth-based Oakdale Resources is set to add another drilling program to its bevy of international mineral prospects across the Nullarbor in South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula.
ASX-listed Oakdale has been granted a new exploration tenement covering its Gibraltar Halloysite-Kaolin project where historical drilling uncovered shallow kaolinitic clays, adjacent to Andromeda Metals’ Mount Hope halloysite project. Confirmation of the news charged the company's share price more than 23 per cent higher in daily trade by Thursdays close.
With landowner access agreements already in place, an initial reconnaissance aircore drilling campaign is expected to commence this month, subject to receiving drill permit approvals.
The company said its Gibraltar project tenement area is dominated by recent surface cover masking what lies beneath with little to no outcropping basement geology to chip away at.
According to Oakdale’s management, historical shallow auger drilling records from within the tenement area have confirmed that the basement geology is dominated by granites and gneissic rock lithologies.
Oakdale said an old east-west traverse of shallow drilling, completed by Monax Mining in 2007, vectored in on highly weathered granitic basement rocks. Geological logging from that time reported moderate thicknesses of Kaolin mineralisation close to surface in multiple drill holes.
The company’s geologists also noted portable infrared mineral analysed data included in the Monax records indicated both kaolinite and halloysite mineralisation were present.
Many up and coming junior mineral explorers in WA’s goldfields have experienced similar successes from dredging the archives across ground passed over by earlier prospectors, and it seems Oakdale is on the hunt employing the same strategy across the border in SA.
Oakdale highlighted Andromeda had recently reported results from an initial 40-hole aircore drilling program which reported “significant bright white kaolin intersection, above 80 ISO brightness”, from its Mount Hope project, located 16km south, along strike from Oakdale’s Gibraltar prospect.
According to Andromeda Metals, the Mount Hope deposit boasts a historical resource in excess of 12Mt of high-quality kaolin with similarities to its world-class Carey’s Well halloysite-kaolin deposit which sits around 120km northwest of Mount Hope.
Whilst there is an established mature market for kaolin in ceramics, a new market is emerging for halloysite nanotube technologies and potentially also for high purity alumina.
The combination of ‘nearology’ and historic data mining in SA will likely attract plenty of interested onlookers at the Gibraltar project as Oakdale kicks off exploration in SA hunting for Kaolin and Halloysite.
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