High Grade Metals unearths ‘impressive grade’ cobalt-copper-nickel in Austria
Published: Mar 27, 2018
High Grade Metals (ASX:HGM) today announced that results are in from a geochemical sampling programme at the Nockelberg prospect in the Leogang exploration area.
The Leogang Project is located in the Austrian district of Zell am See, Federal State of Salzburg. The Leogang exploration area covers a total area of approximately 12 square kilometres, and includes the historical Nockelberg and Leogang mine sites.
The results include grades of up to 0.68 per cent cobalt, 7.5 per cent copper and 3.5 per cent nickel in whole rock samples taken near historic adits, and anomalous copper, cobalt and nickel in soil samples.
Grades of such ‘waste’ material are extremely positive indicators of potential subsurface grade which was, at times, economically extracted from the Nockelberg area.
The sampling programme has now confirmed that:
- the waste dump areas outside major adits contain rocks of high grade materials as they may be representative of material previously extracted; and
- the lower target layer is supported by a geochemical anomaly (and could thus be mineralised).
This confirmation, in turn, supports the next phase of exploration at the Nockelberg prospect.
At the same time, it’s worth noting that this is an early stage play and investors should seek professional financial advice if considering this company for their portfolio.
The broad soil geochemical anomaly adds credence to the contention that the bottom layer, previously regarded as not mineralised, may be a suitable drilling target.
Sampling was focused on the old waste dumps from the historic rock extraction process. A waste dump is where material not deemed through visual assessment as ‘high grade enough’ to process is discarded. Where material was not taken for processing, it was discarded. Note that it is not a tailings dump, which is produced as a result of primary ore processing (consisting of leftovers).
The presence of high grade copper suggests that the material was discarded because the miners’ focus was not copper — it was either cobalt or nickel.
HGM CEO, Torey Marshall, said “As we move through the exploration program in Austria, we are following a systematic path. In this case, we are able to show that target layers modelled are supported along their length by geochemical (soil) anomalies giving multiple targets.”
“Further, samples from ‘waste’ still carry, what I regard, as an impressive grade. Having new geochemical evidence of the grade of mineralisation based on whole rock samples, and comprehensive geological modelling completed, the Company will create an Exploration Target assessment for this prospect.”
