iTech historical review outlines gold and copper potential of its Reynolds Range project
Historical drilling returned up to 17m at 3.93g/t gold at the Sabre prospect
Up to 20.3% copper noted in rock chips at the Reward prospect
Focus remains on “advancing the Lacroma graphite project”
Special Report: A historical review has outlined the gold and copper potential of iTech Minerals’ Reynolds Range project in the Northern Territory with up to 17m at 3.93g/t gold in previous drilling and 20.3% copper in rock chips.
The 375km2 project is 40km from Arafura Rare Earth’s (ASX:ARU) Nolans rare earths project that is expected to produce 4,400tpa of neodymium/praseodymium oxide, 474tpa heavy rare earths and 144,393tpa of phosphoric acid.
iTech Minerals (ASX:ITM) had signed an agreement in February to purchase the three tenements that make up the project from Prodigy Gold.
Reynolds Range had previously been assessed to have the potential to host Nolans-style REE mineralisation and lithium mineralisation in abundant outcropping pegmatites.
Significant gold and copper prospects at Reynolds Range. Pic: iTech Minerals
Gold and copper potential
A review of historical exploration results has now confirmed that the project also has abundant gold and copper potential, which is timely given current high gold and copper prices.
Over at the Sabre prospect, historical drilling and surface sampling defined gold mineralisation over 500m of strike and returned assays of 17m at 3.93g/t gold from a down-hole depth of just 13m including 2m at 18.15g/t gold from 20m and 24m at 2.6g/t gold from 36.5m.
Sabre is part of the 42km long Stafford gold trend and contains shallow gold workings associated with the Lander Shear Zone.
There is also a strong association between samples with >1g/t gold and elevated antimony.
Meanwhile, the Reward prospect hosts shallow copper oxide workings from the 1950’s and is considered to be prospective for copper, gold and silver.
Abundant malachite, azurite and chalcocite occurs associated with a brecciated shear zone and sulphidic sediments – a style of polymetallic mineralisation that is similar to the Jervois deposit about 350km to the east that has a resource of 23.8Mt at 2.02% copper, 0.25g/t gold and 25.3g/t silver.
Historical sampling has returned up to 20.3% copper, 271g/t silver and 0.9g/t gold in separate samples while drilling by Prodigy intersected biotite and andalusite schists with narrow intervals of pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite consistent with sulphide mineralisation observed 350m further north at the Reward copper-gold mine.
At the Scimitar prospect – a 1.5km long north-south trending high-grade copper-gold soil and rock chip anomaly, surface sampling conducted in 2020 identified an extended 3km long geochemical anomaly with separate copper-gold and silver-lead-zinc zonation observed.
This rock chip sampling returned assays such as 7.5g/t gold, 783g/t silver and 5.4% copper as well as 1950g/t silver and 21.3% lead.
Last but not least is the Falchion prospect, which returned intersections such as 29m at 2.32g/t gold and 12m at 3.76g/t gold along with gold-antimony-arsenic-lead intersections of 11m at 4g/t gold, 4.45% antimony, 1530ppm arsenic and 382ppm lead.
“The acquisition of these highly promising tenements in the mining-friendly Northern Territory strengthens iTech’s exposure to copper and gold amid rising demand and prices for these metals,” managing director Mike Schwarz said.
“Although iTech remains focused on advancing the Lacroma graphite project, the exploration team is taking advantage of the downtime – while independent geologists work on the maiden resource update – to build on the excellent exploration conducted by Prodigy Gold and identify new compelling drill targets within the Reynolds Range project.”
Future work
Ongoing work at Reynolds Range will assess its REE and lithium potential prior to undertaking a field trip to assess the high priority targets identified from the desk top study.
An upcoming field trip to sample high priority targets will be carried out in late May or early June.
This article was developed in collaboration with iTech Minerals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
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