Sam Ricketts

Action is never far away in the world of rare earth elements. This week's #REE headlines are highlighting the opportunity delivered by #mineralsand #monazite. ACDC Metals has dropped a very strong Scoping Study for the Goschen Central project, where a mining operation is paired with downstream REE processing to deliver great returns. Congrats to the team who over delivered on this one. Mineral sand monazite utilization is an excellent example of resource optimisation, where the overall footprint of mining is reduced by capturing the full value when ground is disturbed. Monazite is a very REE-rich mineral that is abundant in the Murray Basin of western Victoria (Australia) that can supply regional demand for generations. https://lnkd.in/ggZBtSwm Look me up at the Metal Events Limited conference today in #Singapore for more information. [email protected] #EV #rareearth #zircon #rutile #titanium Tom Davidson Ivan Fairhall Andrew Shearer Richard Boyce Kent Balas Brendan Bell Matthew Saxon Mineral Technologies

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Another map worthy of comment. I think the only points this map can get is for using a colour palette which geologists usually expect from a geology map: pink for granite, blue for sediment, purple for ultramafic. I also note there are two shades of purple, so not sure what the brighter pink is, it's not the ultramafic. The dark magenta, a mystery, though presumably komatiitic basalt. The yellow thin layers I presume are felsic volcanics, as these usually are yellow. Orange for pegmatite is very demure, very mindful. The poor shear zone line style, not visible on the map, so I guess this is undeformed rock? The local mines style, also MIA. But where's the tenement ID's? Where's the grid? The scale? I know nobody does north arrows, but that's also missing. hashtag attention to detail dot com.

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New conceptual targets at IWD revealed by our recent ground gravity survey are very exciting.

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15th and 16th August Trans-Basham Chromite and Granite Assessments - Alpuri and Duber areas. Gneiss time In this video I am briefly telling about the piece of stone detached from Gneiss rock. Gneiss is a metamorphic rock (may be of igneous or sedimentary origin). Frequently observed in northern areas and Azad Jammu Kashmir (Pakistan) igneous-origin gneiss rocks have been proving to be integral and extremely appealing dimension stones. Gneiss is generally commercially titled as Juparana (granite). In Pakistan Calsery Juparana (AJK), Golden Juparana (Lower Dir), Pink Juparana (Lower Dir), Grey Juparana (Lower Dir), Pink Cobra granite (Shangla), Purple Cobra (by and large every mountain of Sawat), Cosmo-wave granite (Bajaur) are few of the examples of commercially available gneiss rocks. Duber nala ( Lower Kohistan ) has detachments of multiple varieties of unexplored prospects of Juparana (Gneiss) deposits upstream. We aimed to visit the remotely located chromite area but we didn't have any anticipation about the remoteness. After reaching Duber we were told at sudden that the tracking time may be around three hours while after three hours tracking we knew that we are still three hours away from our destined area. Due to my busy schedule and upcoming back to back commitments, I request to delay the visit for ten days to two weeks or till the next schedule. For information and queries related to mineral exploration, mining operations, and mineral trading please communicate through call and Whatsapp at +923455462291 KJ Mining Engineers and Consultants

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A re-interpretation of the airborne geophysical data by Principal Geophysicist Matthew Hutchens from Southern Geoscience Consultants has identified thirteen conceptual pegmatite targets for follow up at our Miriam Project ✅ The targeting followed a logical set of criteria that provided several highly ranked target areas coincident with geochemical anomalism and mapped pegmatite. #FutureBatteryMinerals #FBM #Geophysics #Lithium #Exploration #Geophysicalsurveys

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One of the reasons I chose to live in Perth, Western Australia, is due to its geological stability. I believed the risk of dying from a geological event, such as an earthquake or volcanic eruption, was practically non-existent. So, I was a bit surprised when I came across a video discussing 𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗺𝗲𝗴𝗮 𝘁𝘀𝘂𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶 that inundated the WA coastline and beyond due to a comet-asteroid impact. The impact, thought to have occurred around 6,000 years ago, resulted in the 29-km wide Burckle Crater located 1,500 km southeast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. This was fascinating, as I had noticed large vegetated sand dunes along the coast south of Margaret River on Google Maps some years ago, which had puzzled me. The dune geometries suggested a palaeoflow from west to east, but they weren't the typical wind-blown linear sand dunes seen along the WA coast, such as those found at Dirk Hartog Island (https://lnkd.in/e9XvD5Nw). The dune fronts don't feather out, but they abruptly terminate at certain distances from the coast. They just looked unnatural to me. There are examples of these dunes just north of the 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗼 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 (https://lnkd.in/eJfYmT3k) and immediately west of 𝗕𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗽 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝘁𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 (https://lnkd.in/e-aVYXhx), but you can see similar vegetated dunes all along the WA coastline. If these are subaqueous dunes, then the tsunami waves must have been massive, as the cliffs near Conto must be at least 40 metres high, and these dunes extend inland for at least 3 km near Margaret River. This video claims there is evidence of tsunami-induced dunes beyond the escarpment west of Perth, which is at least 20 km from the current shoreline. 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗳𝗳, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗜 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗻𝗼 𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗮 𝗶𝗳 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗱𝘂𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝘀𝘂𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝗼𝗿 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗱𝘂𝗻𝗲𝘀. I have found this website that talks about these "chevron" dunes. https://lnkd.in/ePVnWFFk 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗵?  If a similar impact were to occur in the Indian Ocean today, there would be nowhere to escape near Perth due to the low elevation. Perhaps the best option would be to hijack a boat and head out to sea if we receive enough warning? #geology #geomorphology #tsunami #catastrophe

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Nimy Resources (ASX: NIM) has set tongues wagging about its copper find in the WA outback. With assays of more than 2% copper and mineralisation open at depth and along strike, there is a growing view that Nimy may be on to the next big one. It has also hit high-grade gallium 15km away. Gallium is a highly strategic metal and the market is dominated by China, which has said it is clamping down on exports. Produced by Resource Media ---- The Hole Truth is a product of Read Corporate. Please note that Read Corporate does not provide investment advice and investors should seek personalised advice before making any investment decisions Listen to the full episode wherever you find your podcasts: https://ow.ly/FLCK50TMlE1 For more resources news, go to: https://lnkd.in/gefBAM53 #Nimy #Copper #mining #theholetruth #WA #Gallium

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A couple of clay #rareearths plays in Western Australia have reported #metallurgy results on their (broadly) non-ionic clays in the past month. None are pretty. There has been a focus in the commentariat on attaining a Chinese-like ionic comportment and treatment regime of pure ionic nature. There has been commentary and negativity around use of HCl as opposed to AmSul; focus has been put upon nett acid consumption, and costs thereof, and to reduce this, ore material has been screened to fine fractions. However, leach conditions from sighter tests for these almost universally low-grade resources are far from realistic, IMO. Leach temperatures above ambient are difficult to sustain economically today, let alone into the future. Heating the clay and make0up water will be as expensive, if not more expensive, than the nett acid consumption. Bearing in mind 5 tonnes of water per tonne of (screened) clay is a good pulp volume (20%), nett water consumption on a 1000ppm TREO deposit could be 400 tonnes per tonne of MREC. Scale to 1Mtpa of screened clay containing 1,000t of MREC, and you are suddenly requiring prodigious amounts of gas, and consumping mind-boggling amount of carbon, to make your REE's. Social license for this, let alone water licenses, are yet to be granted.

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Great tool to quickly view the current geotech opportunities out there in underground mining.

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Although my job title may not contain Designer, Developer, or Data scientist, I believe all three areas are important when effectively managing a frontline team in a technical environment. I had a great chance today to take a break from looking after a newborn and attend the 10th DDD Perth (Thanks Wes Toleman for the last minute invite and Jason Gilbert for getting me there), with 1400 other local technical minds to learn about current industry trends, reflect on lessons learnt and propose ideas about how we can do better in the future. A few key things I came away with: 1. What are the 'billion dollar' mistakes that we are currently making and can they be avoided. Are the technical workarounds/hacks (implemented with the best of intentions) that are going into production now, going to cause us an order of magnitude more technical debt in the future. 2. AI is coming, how can we use it safely and securely to improve the way we operate. Rail is an industry that is notoriously slow to jump on new trends, how can we speed up this process (starting in non-safety critical contexts) to leverage the benefits faster.

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Today's #JORCWTF courtesy of Riversgold Limited (ASX:RGL) helmed by the vigorous Mr David Lenigas of Artemis fame. RGL today announced high grade drilling from the Northern Zone, which lies east of Kalgoorlie. First interesting observation is the map (below). Here we can see a gram-metre contour. Of note, the gram-metre contour default for the area is apparently 6-8g/m, except where scurrilous drill holes (as highlighted) have proved it to be otherwise. This is an interesting insight into the perceived exploration potential of the area which is "excellent until proven otherwise". Methinks a buffer clip around the holes of, oh, 50m might be warranted. This is interesting because prior maps of the same area do have a clip, but I've noticed that as RGL's share price goes down the interpolated grade between holes goes up. Second comment is a little more intriguing. The company compares its project and metal endowment to Saturn Metals Limited's Apollo Hill project, a 1.8M Oz low-grade resource. This is based on a 200-250Mt at 0.4-0.6g/t Au Exploration Target. This is fair enough, and I do like big target thinking. This is why it is puzzling me why RGL is only drilling air core holes and only concentrating on thin higher grade intervals in what appears to be the supergene blanket mineralisation. Perhaps a reason why Exploration Targets can only be conceived of easily and Resources cannot.

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We have an excellent on-line training and upskilling opportunity coming up in late October - November 2024 for anyone interested in near-mine mineral exploration. CODES - Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Sciences at the University of Tasmania will be running our biannual Exploration in Brownfields Terrains unit, which is open to anyone to participate in, and which is delivered as part of our Master of Economic Geology program. It covers geological, geophysical and geochemical exploration in near mine environments and this year will include a component of Geodata Analytics as part of the program. The unit will be delivered live on-line in two week-long intensive blocks from 28th October to 2nd November and from 18-22nd November. The attached flyer outlines our excellent series of guest speakers, including Wessley Edgar, Kim Frankcombe, Kate Hine, Terry Hoschke, Ned Howard, David Isles, Andrew McNeill, Chris Muller, Jo Whelan, Tony Webster and Lesley Wyborn. More details are provided in the attached flyer. Registration is now open - you can sign up for individual daily sessions, and part or all of the entire two-week program, which is being led by Robert Scott, Michael Roach, Matt Cracknell and Zeb Zukobic. Please contact [email protected] for registration inquiries or more details about this short course and the Master of Economic Geology program. We hope to see you at this event! #codes #utas #dataanalytics #geophysics #geochemistry #exploration #geology #brownfields #goldexploration

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A curious thing is Mons. Early on, the core and chip photos looked extremely pyrrhotitic. The equivocation and obfuscation about the geology seemed uncharacteristic. The grades never looked like they were going to get there. And here we are - apparrently a vein or tensional array of sulphide sandwiched in a diorite intrusion, dragging Ni and Cu in from the surrounding greenstones? I guess time will tell (though, check out their previous airmag map, it's a good guess). But as I always say, you drill your best bit of the conductor and its all downhill from there. In this case, being charitable, it's a 200m x 200m x 50m chunk of pyrrhotite polluted with Ni and Cu, which I suppose counts as high grade. With BHP Nickel West shut down this month, the price of sulphur is going up. Ardmore phosphate pays US$350/t for acid. What's the landed price in Kalgoorlie going to be? Remember Kwinana has 2 berths to import anything and wait times push 60 days to unload ships - this is before we dream of importing 1Mtpa of prill (if we can get it) to feed industries. Nimy has found ~4.5Mt of sulphur here, on beer coaster maths. What is the value of pyrrhotite near Kalgoorlie, with or without any metals in it besides iron?

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In this week’s Geological Analysis Report we covered an ~$18mil MC company called Larvotto Resources Limited and their recent drilling results from Bakers Creek within the Hillgrove Operations which seemingly had some success after hitting 31m @ 65.8g/t Au from 242m. When reviewing announcements each morning, we are always on high alert when a company announces a drill intersect over 150GxM. In the case of Larvotto, their best drill intercepts of 31m @ 65.8g/t Au (BKC015) equated to 2,040GxM (Grams x Metre Intercept), furthermore the intercept was the deepest hole below historic workings and showed a seemingly significant expansion of grade and width. Read the full report to gain the learnings from this announcement and the potential of Bakers Creek within the Hillgrove Mining Operations. If you would like to receive a copy of this report, we offer 1 free sample report to all new “Free Subscribers”. Follow the link below and follow the prompts to claim your free Geological Analysis Report. https://lnkd.in/dJcNyE9X

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The GSA-SGEG has the great honour to host Dr Jon Hronsky for this months Facets of Exploration Webinar Series, Friday the 27th of September at midday AWST Follow the link below to book your ticket, free for all GSA members and students. 27th September 2024: A Practical Predictive Targeting Model for Convergent Margin Gold and Copper Deposits Time: 12:00pm AWST/2:00pm AEST Location: Zoom Registration: Link below - Zoom login will be sent through again the day of the talk. You can book a ticket here https://lnkd.in/gYhGjjJz Synopsis: The majority of the world’s resources of gold and copper are hosted by convergent-margin settings, mostly because these are the primary tectonic environments where fluids are cycled from the mantle into the near-surface. The basic hypothesis of this presentation is that, to a first order, we can explain all convergent-margin related Cu and Au deposits by the interplay of only two fundamental processes, operating in a range of geodynamic contexts. In this framework, ore formation is seen as the predictable consequence of certain particular, although relatively rare, segments of the 4-dimensional evolution of host terranes, not simply the result of the random coincidence of multiple positive factors. The two underlying fundamental processes are 1) the Loucks Process and 2) the FUME (Fertile Upper Mantle Extraction) Process. The Loucks process is most relevant to copper metallogeny whereas the FUME process is most relevant to gold metallogeny. Critically, both processes require specific anomalous geodynamic processes within the context of the evolution of their host convergent margin settings, thereby providing a potentially robust regional-scale predictive capability. These two processes commonly coincide because the same geodynamic conditions may favour both at the same location and time. In practice, there is a spectrum between Cu-only (Loucks process dominant) and Au-only (FUME process dominant) end members. This model implies that regional-scale metallogenic fertility has both Static and Dynamic aspects. Static Fertility is the requirement for a metasomatised upper-mantle source region, which is an inherited property, not dependant on syn-mineralisation geodynamics. It is only relevant to the FUME process and Au metallogeny. Dynamic Fertility is the requirement for a favourable, anomalous geodynamic context that allows the FUME and/or the Loucks process to operate. This is transient in both time and space, driven by heterogeneities in regional-scale geodynamics and is relevant to both Cu and Au metallogeny.

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All too regularly, I see analyses and models that do not adequately replicate or understand the geological and structural setting. This is fundamental to creating accurate and reliable geotechnical models. I discussed this topic in an article in this month's release of Friction. #structuralgeology #geotechnicalengineering #mining

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Gold vs Pyrite A lot of people confuse these two minerals, but it’s completely understandable—they look quite similar after all. Gold (Au) Au crystals can form as cubes or octahedra, though these shapes are very rare; I’ve never seen one myself. Typically, gold occurs as grains, flakes, nuggets, and dendritic masses. Its bright yellow colour is resistant to tarnishing. When gold is rich in silver, it appears light yellow. The streak of Au is golden-yellow. Au is opaque and has a metallic luster. Au mainly forms in hydrothermal veins, often associated with quartz and sulphides. It also occurs in placer deposits of unconsolidated sand, sandstone, and conglomerate. It is possible to find alluvial Au as grains or nuggets in stream beds. While Au can be confused with pyrite and chalcopyrite at first glance, a few tests can distinguish it. For example, Au is insoluble in all single acids. Pyrite Pyrite mainly forms as cubic crystals, with crystal faces that are frequently striated. Pyrite has a pale yellow colour, very similar to Au but often described as more beautiful (non-scientific), which is why it’s nicknamed “fool’s gold.” Its streak is greenish-black. Like Au, pyrite is opaque and has a metallic luster. Pyrite is a common accessory mineral in igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Pyrite is soluble in concentrated nitric acid and aqua regia. #Geology #EconomicGeology #Mining #Gold #Pyrite #Mineralogy #Minerals

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Continuing .........with Which Veins are Important? There are typically a wide range of vein types in most porphyry rock masses, but it is usually only the subset of weaker veins that are important in caving. They strongly influence the caveability, the fragmentation and also the stability of critical infrastructure. But how do we determine the weak ones from the strong ones? Initially the Moh’s hardness scale was used as a strength scale (Laubscher & Jakubec, 2000), but today, systematic testing (UCS, TCS and PLT) allow us to better understand how the different mineral infills impact vein strength. Obviously, we still need to consider other properties such as roughness & waviness, as well as considering how the different alteration facies modify vein strengths. Check out the previous weak veins (https://lnkd.in/gPHAVszE) post and see WSP’s growing database of veins strength.    If we want to characterise our vein system as quantitatively as we do with open structures in shallower deposits, then we need to know the vein infill, where each vein type is found within the orebody and their intensity (or abundance).   Follow along as we continue to describe our approach #rockmasscharacterisation #geology #CaveMining #rockmechanics #Fracman #mining #miningengineering WSP

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