Victory ready to diamond drill rare earths ‘engine room’ as it extends critical minerals discovery at North Stanmore

Victory Goldfields is getting down to business at its emerging rare earths discovery in WA’s Cue mining district, with drilling announced for its alkaline intrusion prospect.

The discovery a few months ago of the alkaline intrusion was a big deal, given experts view these geological features as the “engine rooms” for rare earth elements and critical metals.

Drilling is now set to begin at the target with three holes to a combined depth of 980m to be drilled after the completion by Victory (ASX:1VG) of a 100m by 100m, 441 station gravity survey.

Orlando Drilling, a division of respected ASX-listed driller Dynamic Group Holdings (ASX:DDB) will carry out the task.

It comes off the back of a highly successful drill drive at its North Stanmore clay rare earths discovery, where an extra 10,000m aircore drill drive has been sanctioned after a 118-hole aircore drill program returned grades at an average 1014ppm total rare earths oxides

The alkaline intrusion is located just 1km from the ionic clay discovery by Victory which boasted REE grades of up to 9746ppm or 0.97% total rare earths oxides.

That included high ratios of magnet metals neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium and terbium (18.6% of the total) with a heavy to total rare earths ratio averaging 34%.

 The nitty gritty on that alkaline intrusion

The alkaline intrusion is a high priority target given its prospectivity in relation to targets both on Victory’s ground and elsewhere.

Victory’s discovery could be associated with a major plume magmatic event in the northern Yilgarn Craton, postulated to have extended from the Mt Weld carbonatite in the east to Cue in the west.

Mt Weld, owned by $8 billion capped giant Lynas (ASX:LYC), is the largest rare earth mine in the western world and the richest source of neodymium and praseodymium for EV and wind turbine magnets outside China.

The combination of the low flying aerial magnetic and gravity survey data has identified a number of other exploration prospects for Victory, but the alkaline intrusion is the main focus for now.

There are other critical metals to consider as well, with the latest data suggesting an initial diamond hole that found anomalous nickel, cobalt and copper of up to 1022ppm, 127ppm and 244ppm respectively is around 100m in a northwest direction from the gravity high.

Back in the realm of rare earths, Victory’s technical team believe the company’s ionic clay rare earth discovery to the south is related to the alkaline intrusion, with geochemical data from the initial diamond hole confirming similar ratios of heavy and total rare earths.

Both systems have similar elevated niobium and tantalum ratios which are typical of mantle plume magmas.

Angled drill holes are planned to recover samples of the fenite, altered rocks occurring adjacent to alkaline intrusion which often host rare earths and critical metal mineralisation.

This article was developed in collaboration with Victory Goldfields, 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.

The post Victory ready to diamond drill rare earths ‘engine room’ as it extends critical minerals discovery at North Stanmore appeared first on Stockhead.

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