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Highlights
- Petratherm is riding high on the latest rare earth (REE) discovery at its Comet Project.
- The new prospect, Artemis, compliments Meteor, the company’s high-quality and emerging REE prospect nearby.
- The company believes that the new prospect shows good upside potential with high-grade clay hosted rare earths intercepted over a large area and vertical thickness.
- The latest development has also boosted the company’s confidence in its exploration models for discovering REE mineralisation.
- The company expects to unearth new exploration targets in the coming months.
Petratherm Limited (ASX: PTR), an Australian mineral exploration company, has made a new discovery at its Comet Rare Earth Project in South Australia’s Northern Gawler Craton region.
The latest exploration drill results have defined a new, major rare earth (REE) occurrence named the Artemis Prospect with coherent grades >1000 ppm Total Rare Earth Oxide (TREO) and over substantial thicknesses (up to 32 metres).
Notably, 90% of the project area has not yet been explored for REE mineralisation.
The Major New Rare Earth Prospect – Artemis
The new prospect, open laterally in all directions, covers an approximate 1.5km by 800m area.
It sits only 15km southeast of Petratherm’s well-defined Meteor REE Prospect, where the company has defined a substantial and continuous horizon of high-grade (>1000 ppm TREO) mineralisation starting from shallow depths (3-6 metres below surface), and over substantial vertical thicknesses.
The Artemis prospect is characterised by a high-grade blanket of mineralisation over 1,000 ppm TREO hosted within the clay weathering profile.
The mineralisation starts at shallow depths and high-grade drill intersections range from 12 to 32 metres in thickness. High-value magnet rare earth (MREO) intercepts up to 609 ppm are recorded and across the prospect the average MREO drill intercept grade is 242 ppm.
Of the total 21 holes drilled at Artemis Prospect, 20 holes returned significant mineralised REE intercepts.
Significant new drill intercepts are as follows:
© 2023 Krish Capital Pty. Ltd. (Data source: company update)
What does this discovery mean for Petratherm?
The latest results have boosted the company’s confidence in the project and confirmed the Artemis Prospect as an important new REE occurrence. The prospect has the potential for the delineation of an extensive mineralised blanket with future infill drilling, the company added. Moreover, the latest results compliment the advanced REE Meteor Prospect at the project.
The company is advancing petrological work to understand the nature of REE mineralisation hosted in the clays as well as to determine the prospectivity of the underlying bedrock for primary REE mineralisation at depth.
This is what Petratherm’s CEO Peter Reid said about the development, among other things.
© 2023 Krish Capital Pty. Ltd. (Data source: company update)
Petratherm believes that the company is well positioned to be a significant player in the Comet Project area, which is shaping up as an emerging REE province. Over the coming months, the company expects to identify further new exploration targets, backed by its cutting-edge models, along with a significant, under-explored land holding of 1,915km2 at the Comet Project.
