Nickel › Central Musgrave Project
The Central Musgrave Project (CMP) creates a significant opportunity for the discovery and development of Nickel-Cobalt oxides, Nickel sulphide deposits as well as Platinum group elements.
The project is located within the Central Musgrave ranges, straddling the WA/SA/NT borders in central Australia.
The geological setting is of the Musgrave Block which is an east-west trending structurally bounded mid–Proterozoic terrane of some 130,000 square kilometers in area. Within the block, the high–grade metamorphic basement and the mid–Proterozoic Bentley Supergroup have been intruded by younger charnokitic granodiorite, adamellite and layered intrusions of the Giles Complex. The Giles Complex consists of a series of stacked sills and dykes of mafic, ultramafic and anorthositic composition that were intruded at successively shallower crustal levels.
In the Giles Layered complex, primary mineralisation occurs in three known styles:
- Primary (magmatic sulphide) Nickel–Copper–PGE’s, as occurs at the Nebo and Babel discoveries of BHP Billiton (ex WMC), near Jamieson,
- Secondary (oxide) Nickel–Cobalt mineralisation associated with the weathering of ultramafic rocks of the Giles Complex as at Wingellina, and
- Vanadium and Titanium magnetite bands associated with the most fractionated and highly evolved portions of the gabbro–troctolite intrusions, as occur in the Jamieson Ranges.
Sulphur–saturation and the formation of copper–nickel sulphides can be triggered by contamination of the parental magma by the wall rock. Direct evidence of early contamination is seen at the Wingellina intrusion. The geochemical patterns in the Kalka intrusion, also within the CMP shows evidence of contamination in early stages. It is the basal contacts of the layered intrusives within the CMP that provides a vector in the search for nickel sulphides which will concentrate at the basal contact or trap sites within feeder structures below the intrusion (within the basement gneiss) through which magma entered the chamber that is the focus of Metals X nickel sulphide exploration.
Nickelifierous and cobaltiferous mineralisation appears restricted to intrusions with substantial thicknesses of dunite and/or peridotite ultramafic. The Wingellina nickel oxide mineralisation is a surficial, tropical laterite style of mineralisation developed over olivine–rich ultramafic stratigraphy. It is the exploration and development of this environment within the CMP that is the focus of Metal X's nickel–cobalt oxide strategy.
The Central Musgrave Project, main exploration targets are oxide nickel, sulphide nickel, and platinum–group elements. Metals X currently has two key nickel oxide prospects, the Wingellina nickel–cobalt oxide prospect and the Claude Hills prospect.
The tenements of the Central Musgrave Project all lie within Aboriginal Lands. The South Australian title is entirely within the freehold Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands of South Australia. The Western Australian licences all lie within Aboriginal Reserve A17614 which is leased by the Ngaanyatjarra Land Council. Exploration on EL69/535 is carried out under the terms of a deed of agreement between the Ngaanyatjarra Land Council and Hinckley Range Pty Ltd, dated 2nd July 2001. No access agreement has been finalized over EL69/1090 and 1091, and no ground exploration has been completed in the area to date. Exploration on the South Australian land is carried out pursuant to an Exploration Deed between Austral Nickel Pty Ltd and Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara.