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Auroch on the attack
ust a day before Auroch Minerals Ltd ing some further drilling shortly.” tially be something we’re seeing at Ne-
Jexploration manager Matt McCarthy Both McCarthy and Auroch managing pean,” McCarthy explained. “It’s a very
addressed the Australian Nickel Confer- director Aidan Platel have likened the attractive hypothesis which we have just
ence, the first hole from the company’s opportunity at Nepean Deeps to West- started to test.”
maiden diamond drilling programme at ern Areas Ltd’s Flying Fox mine due to Following the completion of the first
Nepean Deeps below the historic mine a pegmatite vein constraining the deep drill hole prior to the conference, Platel
workings was deemed fruitful. exploration. called it a “pivotal moment” for the pro-
“The hole was a success,” McCarthy Nepean is only up to 500m deep and ject and company.
said. “It was actually the first hole to drill previously produced more than 32,000t “Due to the lack of any deep explora-
through the thick pegmatite below the nickel. Meanwhile, Flying Fox is more tion historically, we had no idea what to
mine.” than 1.2km deep and has so far pro- expect from this once we go to depths
Hole NPDD008 travelled to a depth of duced 100,000t nickel. below the historic mine workings,” Platel
1,291m and intersected a total 46m of “Western Areas eventually drilled said. “To have intersected thick zones of
prospective komatiitic ultramafics over through and got to the first of several ultramafics below the pegmatite…is an
three intervals. Geophysical surveys are mineralised terraces and that can poten- exceptional result and proves our theory
now being conducted downhole and will that the mine stratigraphy does indeed
guide further drilling to take place a mat- continue beneath the pegmatite intru-
ter of weeks from now. sion.”
Despite there being historic drilling Results from the downhole geophysi-
from the old mine workings, this was cal surveys were expected at time of
the first time any kind of exploration has print.
gone so deep at the Nepean nickel pro- “We’re committed to delivering a
ject. 100,000t contained nickel resource from
“We’ve picked up pegmatites and the company,” McCarthy said. “We be-
greenstones pretty well,” McCarthy said. lieve there’s significant exploration po-
“We’re also taking a sonic tool to site to tential in the short term with multiple pro-
measure the seismic velocity of the hole grammes planned.”
which will be fed into the interpretation of
the algorithms used to update our pro- – Fraser Palamara
cessing going forward. We’ll then be do- Matt McCarthy
Excellence in
Exploration
Large tenement holdings in the emerging
Ni-Cu-PGM province of south west WA also
with Li and REE potential.
Major ground position for Ni-Cu-PGM in
Broken Hill, NSW. Breakthrough drill
results at 3 prospects.
Drilling to commence in Q4 2021 for gold at
the Doonia project east of the Burns
discovery near Kambalda WA.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Peter Unsworth Non-Executive Chairman
Michael Jones Managing Director
Paul Ingram Non-Executive Director
Markus Elsasser Non-Executive Director
(08) 6454 6666
impactminerals.com.au
aUSTRaLIa’S PaYDIRT NOVeMBeR 2021 Page 41
