A fixed loop electro-magnetic survey has been completed by Mamba Resources (ASX: M24) at the southern target of the Black Hills tenement, which lies within the company’s Darling Range project in Western Australia.
Darling Range is prospective for nickel, copper and platinum group element mineralisation.
It is only 30km northeast of Chalice Mining’s (ASX: CHN) now famed Julimar nickel-copper-PGE discovery.
This latest survey has special significance in that, due to access limitations in the past, only what the company calls the “second order” northern part of Black Hills has ever been drilled.
Black Hills is near the town of Bolgart, more than 100km northeast of Perth.
On 1 August, Mamba announced that it had secured access to this electro-magnetic target in the southern part, after negotiating a private land access and compensation agreement.
Drilling to begin late next month
That deal allows Mamba to undertake ground activities, including initial drilling of the target.
Mamba managing director Mike Dunbar said the survey data collected will allow its consultants to model the area and identify high-priority targets for drilling.
He said modelling of the survey results is expected to be completed in early January, with diamond drilling to begin in the latter half of that month after the crops have been harvested.
Adjacent to major nickel-copper-PGE project
The Darling Hill project consists of one granted exploration licence (Black Hills) and two exploration licence applications, Batty Bog and Mistake Creek.
All-up, the licences cover 75sq km.
Mistake Creek is adjacent to the Jimperding nickel-copper-PGE project owned by Mandrake Resources (ASX: MAN).
The project area covers parts of the northern portion of the Jimperding metamorphic belt.
Previous drilling at Black Hills just for gold
In 1995 CRA Exploration — the field arm of what is now Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) — conducted drilling at Black Hills which was designed to test for gold.
Some 26 holes were completed and returned grades up to 1.37 grams per tonne gold.
Then between 2011 and 2013 the former Fox Resources conducted rock chip sampling, with assays including 1,720 parts per million nickel and 1,610ppm copper.
Regarding Batty Bog and Mistake Creek, Mamba has previously noted that those tenements had seen very little historical exploration even though a package of ultramafic/mafic rocks trended through the tenements.
Get the wire before the market opens.
The ASX small-cap stories that matter, filed before 9am AEST. Curated by the Small Caps desk.