Marmota drills first 10 holes to prove up 10pc SA titanium find

Marmota chairman Dr Colin Rose said: “Marmota announced just 10 days ago HM assays featuring bonanza grades in every discovery hole. Those assays confirm Marmota’s discovery at Muckanippie as a highly significant new heavy mineral sands discovery.”
Rose said Marmota was progressing a major follow-up drill program “with full speed” to rapidly advance, grow and develop the titanium heavy mineral discovery.
The latest holes also tested a pronounced 1.5km by 750m total magnetic intensity anomaly identified within the paleochannel. An arcuate north-south line of about 200m-spaced holes covered the peaks of the anomaly and all four holes nailed good HMS thicknesses and high titanium dioxide grades.
The elevated magnetics signature in the channel could reflect an accumulation of thicker sands as a water-sorted, transported and deposited placer-style heavy mineral sands deposit.
The company sees the identification of the new palaeochannel as significant because it defines and also potentially enlarges the prospective areas for ancient buried river channels to host titanium-rich mineralisation.
The bends of the palaeochannel – such as could be inferred from the shape of the magnetic anomaly – are seen as highly prospective for the concentration of heavy minerals.
This is due to heavy minerals being preferentially sorted and deposited on the insides of drainage bends where water flow changes velocity, such as in a depression or at a bend.
A possible primary source of the heavy minerals may lie in nearby host rocks related to the local Muckanippie Complex, which includes layered igneous ultramafic, gabbroic and felsic anorthosite intrusive rocks that could represent one or more heavy mineral source points.
Marmota sees analogues between the local geological environment and renowned centres of world-class deposits such as South Africa’s Bushhveld Complex, which contains giant deposits of chromium, platinum, palladium and titanium.
If Marmota can tie together extensive thicknesses of high-grade titanium-rich mineralisation – especially if it can be shown to extend beyond the palaeochannel environment – it could be onto a real winner.
Proving up the resources could give the company a significant high-demand strategic commodity line from a remarkable South Australian project that has already delivered the high-grade Aurora Tank gold project, where work is ongoing.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: [email protected]