Petratherm’s drilling finds new style of titanium-rich mineralisation at Muckanippie

The new style of titanium-rich heavy mineral mineralisation identified by drilling at Petratherm’s Muckanippie project could be suitable for free dig operations.

A new style of titanium-rich heavy mineral mineralisation has been found at Petratherm’s Muckanippie project in South Australia. Pic: Getty Images

Special Report: Greenfields’ drilling away from the Rosewood heavy mineral sands discovery within Petratherm’s Muckanippie project in South Australia has identified a new style of titanium-rich heavy mineral mineralisation hosted in saprolite clay.

• Petratherm drilling identifies new style of saprolite clay-hosted heavy mineral mineralisation rich in titanium
• This mineralisation appears to be regionally extensive and could be suitable for a free dig operation
• More holes from drill program to be tested and further drilling planned to test continuity of mineralisation

Drilling returned assays such as 44m grading 29.4% heavy minerals from surface to end of hole (24ND003), 61m at 19.7% HM from surface to end of hole (24DK004), and 45m at 27% HM from 6m (24DK004) from the Nardoo, Duke and Claypan prospects respectively.

Mineralisation at the Duke and Nardoo prospects occur along a prominent magnetic trend which could be mineralised over its entire strike of >15km while Claypan mineralisation is associated with discrete magnetic features though further drilling is required to determine if HM is present in untested non-magnetic zones.

Petratherm (ASX:PTR) notes that this new style of saprolite HM mineralisation starts from or near surface and ranges from 40m to 60m in thickness.

Adding further interest, the soft material lends itself to a potential free dig operation while preliminary visual mineral logging of HM concentrates indicates a high-grade ilmenite-dominant content with leucoxene credits.

Processing could potentially be achieved using standard HM methods.

“The titanium heavy minerals hosted in saprolite clays at Muckanippie represent a new style of mineralisation that we believe has tremendous upside potential,” chief executive officer Peter Reid said.

“The drill results shows that the mineralisation is regionally extensive and has potential for large tonnage free dig ore. Importantly intercepts occur over wide thicknesses, making them favourable for open-pit, free-dig mining. 

“Saprolite hosted HM deposits have the potential to be mined and processed using very similar mining techniques to traditional HMS deposits.” 

Reid added that Muckanippie is shaping up to be a camp-style province for titanium following the discovery of high-grade HM at Rosewood and these new saprolitic-hosted HM prospects.

Potential also exists for further new discoveries with follow-up exploration drilling.

Muckanippie project area. Pic: Petratherm

Drill program

The results were returned from 49 holes totalling 1652m that were drilled in October 2024 to test 10 targets that had the potential to host titanium-bearing HMs.

Anomalous titanium assays were intercepted at eight of the targets tested and samples from four holes were selected for trial HM separation to test for the presence of valuable titaniferous HMs.

HM mineralisation at Duke and Nardoo were formed from the deep weathering of a titanium-rich basement horizon easily traceable from aeromagnetic data.

The two prospects were drilled to test different parts of the magnetic trend ~5km apart.

At the Claypen area, six different saprolitic/weathering targets were tested with high titanium assays returned from five targets, most of which sit around the southern rim of the targeted magnetic feature.

PTR is now submitting samples from other holes with significant titanium assays for HM analysis and will carry out visual logging of HM concentrates.

Following this, selected concentrates will be composited and submitted to benchtop and small-scale HM recovery investigations including magnetic and electrostatic separation of HM concentrate and geochemical evaluation of concentrate product.

These results will complement similar testing being undertaken on Rosewood samples and will help to determine if a joint mining operation is viable.

PTR intends to carry out more exploration drilling to test the continuity of mineralisation relative to magnetic trends and to test other HM models currently being developed by its exploration team.

This article was developed in collaboration with Petratherm, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing. 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

Originally published as Petratherm’s drilling finds new style of titanium-rich mineralisation at Muckanippie