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Venture Minerals’ Jupiter rare earths discovery has produced its best intersection to date – a whopping 58m at 2723 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO) – at the site 80km south-west of Mount Magnet in WA’s Mid West region.
Unveiling a new suite of Jupiter assays on the ASX this morning, the company says its infill air-core (AC) campaign in the southern half of the 40-square-kilometre carbonatite target has continued to produce consistent, broad and high-grade rare earths mineralisation. Additionally, the latest batch of analyses include four of the top 10 intercepts produced to date at Jupiter.
Venture Minerals’ Jupiter rare earths prospect may seem remote, but it has sealed road access about 280km from the major port of Geraldton.
Management says the sought-after magnet rare earths component of the TREO across the entire Jupiter target is also maintaining a consistent 23 per cent, which bodes well for any future mine modelling and ore scheduling. Importantly, the proportions of the deleterious radioactive elements, uranium and thorium, have remained consistently low throughout the program and across the entire span of the intrusive at the shallow depths tested.
‘After more than 200 drillholes, we are still breaking records.’
Venture Minerals managing director Philippa Leggat
The company’s highlighted intersections from the latest batch of results are from 27 holes. The shortest reported intercept is 24m and the longest is 75m, while the minimum reported grade is 1307ppm TREO and the highest is 2723ppm.
Venture Minerals managing director Philippa Leggat said: “When you see infill drilling delivering a sea of magenta that represents the highest grade, like we see in the southern area of Jupiter, you know you’re onto a very, robustly-mineralised system. And after more than 200 drillholes, we are still breaking records.”
Sorted according to the standard m.ppm (metres intercept length times ppm grade), the results show the lowest-value intercept to be 24m going 1678ppm TREO (40,272m.ppm) and confirms the headline intercept to be 58m at 2723ppm TREO (157,934m.ppm)
Interestingly – and showing the robustness of the mineralisation – the lowest value intercept still includes 12m at 2198ppm TREO, while the best intercept includes 16m at 3036ppm TREO. Overall, on data sorting based on m.ppm, the best intercept of 36m at 2016ppm TREO (72576m.ppm TREO) lies within a full intercept of 53m at 1833ppm TREO.
The latest hits exceeding 50,000m.ppm define a concentration of exceptional responses within the central to south-west areas of the intrusive body. Venture says its infill program has reduced the drillhole spacing to 500m by 250m across the entire target area, while assays from a further 42 drillholes are still pending.