During the 2009-2010 project reporting year, Iluka completed exploration work costing $5,200,532 across its combined thirty-one Group 4 tenements, to assess the north-eastern Eucla Basin's sediment stratigraphy and heavy mineral sand (HM)...
During the 2009-2010 project reporting year, Iluka completed exploration work costing $5,200,532 across its combined thirty-one Group 4 tenements, to assess the north-eastern Eucla Basin's sediment stratigraphy and heavy mineral sand (HM) potential within a 22,983 square km overall area. In total, 892 vertical aircore NQ open holes were drilled for a combined penetration of 36,730.8 m. The highest grade mineralised intercepts reported were 1.5 m @ 29.32% HM, plus 1.5 m @ 10.45% HM, both from within the depth interval 25.5 m to 28.5 m in hole YE3840 on EL 4345. On the subject Barton EL 3319/4455, 43 new holes for 2763 m were drilled. A best mineralised intercept of 1.5 m @ 4.19% HM was made in hole MAR0160. 10 other holes made significant HM intercepts of >0.5% HM over comparable width. On the subject Barton Range North EL 3320/4457, 86 new holes for 3722.5 m were drilled. A best mineralised intercept of 1.5 m @ 9.11% HM was made in hole MAR0196. 16 other holes made significant HM intercepts, including MAR0274 and MAR0298 with much wider intervals recorded. On the subject Paling Range EL 3321/4456, 2 new holes for 42 m were drilled. A best mineralised intercept of 1.5 m @ 3.03% HM was made in hole MAR0203. A campaign of broadly-spaced (~1 km apart) reconnaissance aircore drilling was also undertaken by Iluka to test untried ground in the north-west of the tenement package, out past Oak Valley near the NW end of the Ooldea Range and in the related back barrier zone, where there was inferred to be a high chance of finding HM placer occurrences. Results obtained by the initial drilling here were generally disappointing, however, there are large expanses of low tenor mineralisation that require follow-up work, particularly along scarp boundaries and around recognised embayments. The program of work also delineated the previously discovered Thar prospect, via a total of seven traverses of appraisal drillholes that were sited either 400 m, 200 m or 100 m apart. Their results showed that this deposit, now located along the common boundary between ELs 4334 and 4337, is of a low grade (average 2% HM) and lies quite deep, however, it does contain high concentrations of zircon. The deposit is situated on the outer lower margin of the Barton Range, and about halfway along it, near a headland on a south-west facing embayment. It has been postulated that the low grade nature of Thar could indicate that its mineralisation has been remobilised a small distance from a more permanent still-stand position to the east. Therefore the region surrounding Thar will now form the focus of upcoming work. However, it was noted that while both the Jacinth and Cyclone HM deposits formed in comparable geomorphological settings are positioned towards the central and upper limits of their respective ridge locations, Thar is located on the lower margin of the Barton Range ridge. The presence of five other known HM mineralised resources on the Ooldea and Barton Ranges, the geomorphological similarities of portions of the Barton scarp with the Jacinth deposit setting, and the limited drilling done to date across the subject region supported Iluka's general view that high prospectivity still remained there. During the 2010-2011 project reporting year, Iluka completed its first pass broad-spaced regional exploratory traverse drilling across the Group 4 tenements, undertaking this work on 15 of the thirty-one licence areas. 735 vertical aircore RC holes were drilled for a total penetration of 37,306.4 m. Results were generally disappointing, with only about 10% of the holes encountering thin occurrences of >1% HM. A total of 4377 square km of inferred unprospective ground was partially relinquished from six licences during the year. The latest drilling information showed that some prospective ground is situated near Thar prospect, which averages ~2% HM, and further along the Barton Range in the east of the project area, where Iluka believes that numerous small palaeo-shoreline embayments exist that may have formed HM trap sites. One known occurrence there is the Sherrin prospect which was identified by Rio Tinto in 2008 - this may have large dimensions and clearly needs assessment. Drilling in some regions of the Group 4 tenement package has lately identified areas of poor stratigraphy and therefore low prospectivity. These areas will be subject to further relinquishment. During the 2011-2012 project reporting year, Iluka performed additional broad-spaced regional exploratory traverse drilling across the Group 4 tenements, undertaking this work on 10 of the thirty-one licence areas. On the subject ELs 4455, 4456 and 4457, 163 vertical aircore RC holes were drilled in the period September-November 2012 for a total penetration of 9471 m. Results were disappointing, with HM strandlines poorly preserved in the positions tested along the Barton Range scarp. However, other coincident radiometric/soil anomalies still remain to be tested. ELs 4594, 4595 and 4330 were fully surrendered during this reporting year. During the 2012-2013 project reporting year, Iluka performed exploratory traverse drilling across ELs 4344 and 4345 to follow up HM intercepts made by the 2011 drilling campaign. 134 vertical aircore RC holes were drilled in the period October-November 2013 for a total penetration of 8762 m. Encouraging thick low grade HM intercepts were made east (landward) of the Ooldea Range at Immarna North, which require follow-up. These and other licence areas lying east of and proximal to the Ooldea Range will be given priority for this drilling during 2014. Ten licences constituting approximately 42% of the G4 tenure were fully surrendered during this year, through becoming sufficiently matured in respect of perceived prospectivity. Two phases of relinquishments were completed in 2013 over for a total reduction of 8,421 km2 (41.8%) reduction of the G4 Tenure. During the 2013-2014 project reporting period, no heavy mineral (HM) exploration was completed on the G4 tenements. The HM prospectivity of the Iluka’s G4 tenure is decreasing due to Iluka’s continuous exploration in the region since 2004. During 2014, a company-wide review identified remaining areas of HM prospectivity and these areas are proposed for drill testing in 2015. Exploration efforts were focused on Iluka’s new commodity exploration program, targeting Ni, Cu and Platinum Group Elements (PGE) in the region. As a part of this 60.9-line km of heliborne VTEM geophysics data was collected over EL 5528. The survey was completed by Southern Geoscience Consultants and was a part of a larger survey flown in 2014 [See ENV12075 – CNO:2042948]. Flight line spacing was 200 m or 100 m infill. During the 2014-2015 project reporting period a significant proportion of the G4 tenements was undertaken, with full relinquishments of EL’s 5642, 4326, 4329 (5530), 4336 (5532), 4339 (5535), 4338 (5534), 4337 (5533), 4334 (5531) and partial relinquishments of 4457 (5583), 4455 (5640) were completed. No exploration work was undertaken by Iluka during the reporting period. Doray Minerals Limited explored a portion of the Group 4 tenure for gold mineralization. Doray commenced a farmin agreement with Iluka on the 1st January 2015 across we tenements, of which 7 tenements are with Group 4; EL’s 5528, 5536, 5537, 5538, 5583, 5582, 5640. The agreement grants Doray the rights to earn an 80% interest in the gold rights through the expenditure of $7,000,000 over 6 years. During the reporting period, Doray completed a geochemical sampling programme consisting of all historical holes with basement material, geochemical interpretation and aircore (AC) drilling of targets generated (outside of the Group 4 tenements). The geochemical sampling project consisted of 3087 samples from 2016 historical drill holes from historical holes drilled by Iluka for HMS. 1608 of these holes (2478 samples) are located on current Iluka tenements and 64 of these holes (96 samples) fall within Group 4 (EL 5528). EL5528 was transferred to Doray on the 20th November 2015.