Nickel › Claude Hills
The Claude Hills prospect covers the easterly extension of the Wingellina layered intrusion and basement gneiss in South Australia. The area is on Aboriginal lands, and exploration is conducted under the terms of an Exploration Deed between Austral Nickel and the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara.
Reconnaissance mapping by explorers in the 1950's and 1960's located numerous outcrops of nickeliferous ochre, and limited drilling located good intercepts of oxide nickel. On the northern part of the project area, immediately to the south of the Mann Thrust scout drilling returned a best intercept of 58m @ 1.46%Ni and 0.106% at Claude Hills. On the same geological contact, 25 kms to the west, Acclaim intersected 21m @ 1.04%Ni in a single fence of drill holes across the basal contact at the Beadell zone. Drilling is planned to be undertaken to fully test these targets and Metals X considers that significant potential to discover additional nickel oxide mineralisation exist in this area.
Bedrock geochemistry at Wingellina suggests that sulphides may have formed in the melt prior to formation of the layered intrusion and there is a possibility that sulphides may have accumulated in trap sites in feeder dykes or irregularities in the floor of the layered intrusion. Trace nickel sulphides have been located in the mafic complex, suggesting that sulphur- saturation (an essential pre-requisite of nickel sulphide development) may have occurred in parts of the intrusive complex.
Metals X believes that if magmatic sulphide concentrations have formed then potential feeder zones occurring as mafic dykes within the basement gneiss and the interpreted basal contact of the layered intrusives within the Claude Hills tenure are highly prospective targets for nickel sulphides. Recently collated aeromagnetic, radiometric and geochemical data collected by Acclaim re-enforces this view.
Metals X is in the process of reviewing all the data collected to date and plans to follow up existing anomalies with more geochemistry and geophysical prospecting with the aim of both nickel oxide and nickel sulphide reconnaissance exploration commencing in 2006.