Impact on the trail of multi-metals in south-west WA province

Junior explorer Impact Minerals has unveiled a number of high priority targets following recently completed soil geochemical sampling work at its Arkun multi-metals project in Western Australia’s emerging south-west minerals province. The Perth-based company says it now has almost a dozen priority targets for nickel-copper-PGM mineralisation to follow up on and the same number of targets that are potentially prospective for lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites.

Impact says the project area has seen very little exploration with no drilling carried out and no exploration previously undertaken in the quest to find lithium.

According to the company, the soil anomalies for both styles of mineralisation extend across several hundred metres on the reconnaissance traverses.

Impact Minerals Managing Director Dr Mike Jones said: “These soil results have exceeded our expectations by a long way. To have identified 11 targets for nickel-copper-PGM is exciting enough in its own right but recognising the potential for lithium pegmatites over a very large area is also a significant breakthrough for Impact.”

Impact says the central part of the Arkun project area stands out as being strongly anomalous in nickel, copper, palladium, platinum and gold.

As for the lithium discovery, the company suggests the coincidence of the three metals together points to the potential source of the anomalies being lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites, a key source of hard rock lithium for the emerging battery metals industry.

First-pass follow-up work including field checking and rock chip sampling with the aim of prioritising areas for more detailed soil geochemical and ground geophysical programs is in progress.

Dr Jones said: “I feel confident based on the strength and scale of these new anomalies that further work at Arkun will generate numerous targets for drill testing early in 2022.”

“The recent Julimar nickel-copper-PGM discovery and also the presence of the Greenbushes lithium-tantalum mine attest to the potential of this part of WA to host world-class deposits across a wide variety of commodity metals and our new results show how poorly explored this region truly is.”

The company’s Arkun project tenure covers about 1,900 square kilometres roughly halfway between York and Corrigin in the Wheatbelt 130km east of Perth and was pegged in the wake of Chalice Mining’s Julimar discovery about 75km north-east of Perth.

Impact now holds one of the largest tenement positions in the emerging South West minerals district.

Interestingly, one of the world’s biggest mining companies by market cap, London-headquartered Anglo American, recently lodged exploration licence applications for ground-holdings spanning a vast area of about 10,130 square kilometres surrounding three sides of the Arkun project boundaries.

An interpretation of magnetic data by Impact identified a possible “mobile belt” that it says runs for about 500km in length and up to 30km in width and cuts through the Arkun project area.

With the likes of Anglo American staking their claim in the fertile terrane, Impact may be onto something in the environs of the paddocks, gazetted roads and tracks of the WA Wheatbelt region.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au