Impact’s PGM drilling advances in soggy Broken Hill

ASX-listed explorer, Impact Minerals, has defied the weather gods and kept the drill rods turning at its Broken Hill platinum group metals project in western NSW. Despite numerous interruptions to drilling work brought on by unseasonal heavy rain, the Perth-based company hopes to finish its current RC program by the end of the week, with assay results from the exciting Platinum Springs and Red Hill prospects to follow shortly.

Impact has been pumping drill holes into Platinum Springs and Red Hill at Broken Hill, following up on previous high-grade platinum hits and geochemical and geophysical surveys across the Broken Hill project area.

The company says RC drilling is still in progress at the two prospects with two rigs on site. Initial assays have been received from Platinum Springs and some of the aircore drill holes at the Little Broken Hill Gabbro prospect.

However, Impact has been forced to undertake resampling of some drill holes after a significant batch of samples were lost in transit to the assay laboratory. Both RC rigs will move to the Little Broken Hill Gabbro target once the drilling work at Red Hill and Platinum Springs has been completed.

Impact’s Broken Hill project area, which takes in about 815sqkm of the mineral-rich Curnamona province, sits in the vicinity of the historic lead-zinc-silver mining centre of Broken Hill.

Its earlier drilling at the Platinum Springs prospect returned an encouraging intersection of 2.75m going 3.5 grams per tonne platinum, 7.0 g/t palladium, 2.0 per cent copper and 1.9 per cent nickel from 55m down-hole including 0.6m at 11.5 g/t platinum, 25.6 g/t palladium, 7.6 per cent copper and 7.6 per cent nickel.

That bonanza drill hit came from magmatic nickel-copper-PGM massive sulphides in a structural channel at the base of the ultramafic unit, suggesting a Kambalda-style structural channel mineralised system is an appropriate model to pursue, according to Impact.

The company says although such styles of PGMs-nickel-copper sulphide mineralisation are more challenging to discover, once confirmed they can persist for long distances down-plunge.

Another notable intercept from a nearby historic hole at Platinum Springs was 2m at 8.4 g/t platinum, 3 per cent nickel and 3.57 per cent copper including 0.9m at 18.8 g/t platinum, 7.5 per cent nickel and 8.1 per cent copper.

The Red Hill discovery got pulses racing about five months ago when Impact revealed intriguing drill intersections including 29m at 2.5 g/t platinum, 5.1 g/t palladium, 2.3 per cent copper and 0.4 per cent nickel.

Impact has plenty of PGMs sniffs to delve into and, wet weather permitting, will be hoping its latest 8,000m aircore, RC and diamond drilling campaign will help put meat on the bones of its vision for a potential PGMs-nickel-copper mining camp at Broken Hill over a 40km belt.

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