Green Critical Minerals Ltd (ASX:GCM) has completed planning for a maiden drilling program on the flagship McIntosh Graphite Project, designed to test four priority targets that have never been drill tested before within the company’s 50 to 100-million-tonne exploration target.
The company intends to complete 10,500 metres of reverse circulation (RC) drilling, following-up on rock chip sampling and field mapping completed in September last year.
Read: Green Critical Minerals identifies extensive outcropping graphite at Mcintosh targets
The Threadfin target, which was previously reported to have a considerable exploration of 25 to 50 million tonnes is also being drill tested as a priority.
Very limited reconnaissance work has been done over these key targets. In some cases GCM was collecting the first rock chip samples ever taken.
Details of priority targets
Of the initial nine targets covered in GCM’s rock sampling program, five prospects have been selected for drill testing – Marlin, Marlin West, Threadfin, Trevally and Cobia.
McIntosh Project location map showing the planned drill lines with respect to electromagnetic surveys.
Marlin West
Marlin West consists of two zones of outcropping graphite mineralisation, ranging in width up to 21 metres and assaying at up to o 5.73% total graphitic carbon (TGC) with an average of 3.73% TGC over 800 metres of strike.
Threadfin
Threadfin was selected based on the extent of the electromagnetic (EM) high in the northern and southern parts of the trend and based on review of historical drilling which produced significant shallow results.
These included 9 metres at 5.1% TGC from 13 metres, including 5 metres at 5.5% TGC from 25 metres and 3 metres at 4.9% TGC from 35 metres.
Results from rock chip sampling suggest that the northern extension of Threadfin is the most prospective, with four rock chips returning over 3.5% TGC and peaking at 4.39% TGC.
Trevally
The Trevally trend is a group of EM highs with exposed graphitic outcrop ranges in thickness up to 11 metres.
Of the six rock chips collected, all samples returned assays greater than 1.34 % TGC with the peak of 4.94% TGC.
Coba
Coba has been drilled tested over 100-metre spacing. Outcropping graphitic mineralisation was observed up to 750 metres past the southern extension of the drilling.
Examples of graphite mineralisation identified in the existing drilling at Cobia include 5 metres at 3.9% TGC from 36 metres.
Marlin
Finally, Marlin represents a ‘regionally significant’ EM anomaly with an exploration target of 30 to 60 million tonnes, which was previously identified by Hexagon Energy Material Limited to be a substantial target for graphite mineralisation.
Outcropping graphite was discovered in the western limb of the Marlin trend, confirming the presence of graphite mineralisation in the area.
Six samples were collected from the Marlin target, grading up to 3.37% TGC, with the exception of two rock chips, which were sub 2% TGC.