Tempest Minerals Ltd (ASX:TEM) has completed the 2022 drilling program at the Meleya Project, part of the company’s flagship Yalgoo Portfolio in Western Australia.
Phase 1, which commenced in September, utilised multiple drill rigs and drilling methods and resulted in a total of 2,202 metres of aircore, 4,069 metres of reverse circulation (RC) and 1,065 metres of diamond drilling for a total of 7,336 metres.
The program had a combined purpose of testing the Master target, testing the Clover target and a broad, shallow pattern across the central Meleya Project area.
Multiple zones of strong alteration and weak mineralisation were encountered in numerous holes throughout the drill campaign.
Assay results are expected in Q1 2023.
Meleya Project overview.
The Meleya Project is part of Tempest’s flagship Yalgoo Portfolio that extends over a footprint of more than 900 square kilometres.
The interpreted Yalgoo Greenstone Supracrustal unit encompasses a rough area of 4000 square kilometres indicating that Tempest holds about 25% of the active exploration leases regionally.
Tempest has for some time considered the target zones at Meleya to represent one of the most exciting greenfields base and precious metal upside exploration opportunities in the industry today.
In early 2022, Tempest drilled the first two holes into the new province at the Orion Target.
This drilling and follow-up work indicated the presence of significant mineralisation and highlighted the increased regional potential.
In September 2022, Tempest started a second larger drilling campaign aimed at testing two coincident anomalous geochemistry and geophysical (magnetic) targets and additionally a wide-spaced shallow regional percussion drilling program.
Master drilling
Tempest completed one diamond drill hole for 427.1 metres at the Master target which encountered minor sulphides and strong alteration throughout the drill hole.
WARDH74 has also provided important stratigraphic context at the southern end of the project relative to drilling done at Orion.
Clover drilling
The Clover Target is a magnetic low stratigraphic sequence 2.5 kilometres to the southeast of the Orion target.
One diamond hole (WARDH75) for 637.1 metres was completed into the Clover target.
This was complemented with a number of RC holes as part of the regional program.
RC drill rig in action at the Clover Target.
The Clover drilling also provided stratigraphic information emanating out of the Meleya Belt.
Thick sequences of highly altered mafic geology and minor sulphides were observed throughout the diamond hole which may represent a previously unrecognised geological sequence within the mineralised Meleya Belt or potentially a strongly altered and ‘demagnetised’ dyke.
Zones of strong alteration and minor sulphides were detected at various locations downhole.
Regional drilling
Tempest carried out regional drilling to collect shallow geochemical data to augment the existing soil sampling or test areas where surface sampling is more challenging or inappropriate.
The regional program also provided the opportunity to correlate geology from surface mapping and deep diamond holes across large distances and provide targets for follow-up drilling.
Drilling in Q4 2022 was in an area of some 4km x 4km of the central Meleya Belt and consisted of some 6,269 metres of aircore and reverse circulation drilling.
This represents a small fraction of the Meleya Project and phase 1 of a number of possible campaigns.
Next steps
- Review of data and interpretation;
- assays due Q1 2023;
- large scale surface sampling project in progress;
- Completion of field activities within the week; and
- potential further drilling planned.