Ardea Resources has identified new rock chip samples with elevated levels of tantalum and hopes the find will now translate into more lithium-bearing pegmatites at its Ghost Rocks prospect in WA’s Eastern Goldfields.
The company recently collected a total of 12 samples from a 6km strike area, with six of them returning elevated tantalum readings of up to 373 parts-per-million. Ardea believes it has an indication of prospective pegmatites after five of the six samples assessed also returned positive geochemical ratios.
Another sample returned anomalous results of 0.32 per cent vanadium, prompting further testing. Assays are also pending on another 20 samples the company has collected over the 6km strike length.
The Ghost Rocks prospect forms part of Ardea’s greater Kalgoorlie nickel project. The company’s tenement portfolio, which covers more than 4100 square kilometres, is one of Australia’s biggest land holdings over ancient nickel-hosting ultramafic rocks. Importantly, its significant tenement package is also prospective for other types of economic mineralisation including lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) and rare earths.
During the past year, the company has identified multiple prospective settings for rare earths and LCT mineralisation, in association with nickel laterite occurrences across its portfolio. This includes a mapping and sampling program across a 10km strike area at its Perrinvale project, where no previous exploration for LCT pegmatites or komatiite-hosted nickel sulphides has occurred.
While the initial sampling program at Perrinvale returned no significant results, assays are now pending from a four-day mapping and sampling program of 25 pegmatites in the north-west section of the company’s project.
In January, the company confirmed Pamela Jean East as its preferred site to set up production infrastructure for its Kalgoorlie nickel project after it discovered rare earths at its alternative Goongarrie West prospect. The results from three holes drilled at the site confirmed significant total rare earth oxides (TREO) with highlights showing 7m at 3506 parts-per-million TREO from 64m in the first hole, 12m going 2487ppm TREO from 40m in the second hole and 4m reading 1181ppm TREO from 56m in the third intercept.
While the company has been buoyed by the prospective battery and critical metals potential of its Goldfields operations, Ardea’s priority focus remains on the ongoing prefeasibility study for its Kalgoorlie nickel project.
The company believes the operation contains the largest nickel-cobalt asset in the developed world. According to the Geological Survey of WA, Ardea’s Kalgoorlie project has the State’s top-ranked contained nickel deposit with 5.8 million tonnes.
Last year, Ardea revealed that the Goongarrie Hub component of its project housed a mineral resource estimate of 561 million tonnes at 0.68 per cent nickel and 0.044 per cent cobalt. It also contains a high-grade component of 78.3 million tonnes of ore going 1 per cent nickel and 0.069 per cent cobalt for 784,000 tonnes of nickel and 54,300 tonnes of cobalt.
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