Infinity Mining is eyeing drill targets at its Hillside and Panorama tenements in the Pilbara after beginning a cultural heritage survey with the Nyamal Native Title Group at the two exploration licences.
Hoping to start its first Pilbara drilling program for the year, the company has engaged Heritage WA and the Nyamal traditional owners group in a bid to seek clearance for heavy equipment access and pad clearing. Program of works applications have also been lodged with the WA Department of Mining, Industry Regulation and Safety for drill program approval.
Panorama’s Brisbane nickel prospect has been highlighted as a priority target after rock-chip samples returned results of 0.764 per cent nickel. Infinity also recently conducted a helicopter electromagnetic survey over the area that identified a prominent conductive target 350m east of the Brisbane prospect, which the company believes could host a buried nickel sulphide system.
Hillside, where a 2018 helicopter electromagnetic survey identified 18 anomalies the company considered worthy of further exploration, is expected to be the next target for drilling.
Follow-up rock-chip sampling returned several gold results, including 30.25 parts per million and 21.89ppm gold. Another assay from the southern area of the project returned copper results at an impressive 70771ppm or 7.08 per cent.
Infinity Mining chief executive officer Joe Groot said: “I am pleased to be back in the field working closely with the Traditional Owners, the Nyamal People, on the cultural and heritage surveys for Infinity’s Panaroma and Hillside tenements. The Hillside project covers some 397 square kilometres and Infinity will be using helicopters to facilitate the ground survey over this region.”
The Brisbane prospect was first identified by Planet Metals in 1969 when a geological mapping and rock-chip sampling program at the site returned results of up to 6319ppm nickel and 14800ppm chromium.
The area sits along the basal contact of an ultramafic intrusion of the Dalton Suite that is considered to be an important host rock for nickel. The recent sampling program also unearthed anomalous levels of zinc up to 2569ppm.
The greater Panorama project consists of three tenements covering 252.3 square kilometres, about 40km west of Marble Bar. The western side of the project is located over a complex structural area on the eastern edge of the Shelley monzogranite complex that also hosts the nearby Sulphur Springs and Kangaroo Caves projects.
Sulphur Springs holds 17.4 million tonnes at 1.3 per cent copper, 4.2 per cent zinc and 17 grams per tonne silver, while the Kangaroo Caves deposit hosts 3.55 million tonnes at 6 per cent zinc, 0.77 per cent copper and 15.2g/t silver.
Historical exploration at Hillside has been conducted by several companies, including Alcoa in 1980 and Great Southern Mining in 1984. Earlier this year, Infinity identified a host of valuable minerals from reconnaissance rock-chip sampling at the project, including anomalous results for copper, molybdenum, gold and silver.
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By Michael Philipps
