Gold Mountain set to drill Brazilian rare earths targets

Gold Mountain has defined several new drill targets at its Down Under project in Brazil following the completion of extensive scout stream sediment sampling and 85 line kilometres of radiometric surveying.

While the company has collected 800 stream sediment samples to date, only 25 per cent of the results have been returned, with 61 of them revealing strong potential for high-grade, monazite-hosted rare earths-niobium-uranium-scandium mineralisation.

And it appears to be just the beginning, as management anticipates finding additional targets from the remaining 75 per cent of outstanding assays in the laboratory. It says many of its sample results compare favourably with those from ionic clay-hosted (IAC) rare earths occurrences in other stream catchments.

Meanwhile, extensive radiometric surveying has also outlined anomalous responses along traverse widths of up to 1600m, in association with thick lateritic weathering profiles.

The four-month field exploration program has enabled Gold Mountain to confirm the key exploration pathfinders to identify potential high-grade rare earths mineralisation and as a result, it has already been able to assemble a respectable string of high-priority drill targets. It says the targets could warrant up to 3220m of shallow auger drilling for first-pass confirmation.

The metreage has been designed to include 1980m in anomalous catchments and radiometric anomalies in the municipalities of Teolândia and Wenceslau Guimarães in the coming months.

A further 1240m of auger drilling has been allocated in a bid to check out an anomalous cluster of strong rare earths geochemical results extending through either side of the town Boa Esperança, through about 10km of the north-easterly strike in the northern part of the Poções tenements in the project. The company believes there is potential for the monazite-hosted rare earths-niobium-uranium-scandium style of mineralisation.

Samples are slated to be analysed for multi-element pathfinders and high-value auger intercepts will also be subject to preliminary metallurgical testing to help establish whether the rare earths anomalism is related to the IAC-style or to monazite-hosted mineralisation.

Immediate future work principally comprises the planned auger drilling to about 10m depth and into the saprolite zone where geochemical or radiometric anomalies are identified and have been ranked according to anomaly value and areas of laterite profile present. That work will take place alongside plotting and interpretation of incoming stream geochemical results from the laboratory and in turn, will also be accompanied by ongoing sampling covering between 10 and 20 square kilometres per day – subject to weather and access.

Gold Mountain’s Down Under tenure lies just 2.2km to the south-east, at its closest point, from Brazilian Rare Earths’ deposit in that company’s 1410sq km of tier-one rare earths ground where IAC-style mineralisation is evident in a significant portion of drilled areas across its exploration tenements. 

The big suite of high-priority targets areas displaying strong geochemical and geophysical responses suggest that Gold Mountain’s proposed comprehensive auger drilling could reasonably be expected to come up with the goods.

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