White Cliff Nickel (ASX: WCN) has intersected widespread nickel mineralisation with grades up to 1% nickel and 0.17% cobalt after completing a 1029 metre Aircore (AC) drill program at the Ghan Well project, indicating potential for nickel sulphides.
Initial nickel intersections include:
- 24 metres at 0.81% nickel and 0.08% cobalt;
- 16 metres at 0.74% nickel and 0.11% cobalt; and
- 20 metres at 0.71% nickel and 0.05% cobalt.
There were peak four metre composite nickel values of 1.08% nickel and 0.12% cobalt and significantly, mineralisation is adjacent to Minara Resources’ (ASX: MRE) Murrin Murrin East mining operations.
The prospect is dominated by a northward trending strong magnetic high that extends over 10 kilometres and is well located 40 kilometres south-west of Laverton on the Western edge of Lake Carey in Western Australia.
This region also hosts the Mt Windarra nickel mines, along with the Sunrise Dam, Granny Smith and Bright Star gold mines.
The company said the nickel and cobalt was found "within the siliceous laterite ultramafic cap and underlying highly weathered saprolitic ultramafic."
The drilling targeted nickel mineralisation "in an extensive sequence of komatiitic ultramafic lava flows and has so far only covered 400 metres of the 6 kilometre long ultramafic sequence," the company added.
In order to better understand the distribution of the nickel and cobalt mineralisation the company is currently resampling the drilling in one metre intervals.
According to White Cliff the identification of komatiitic and cumulate textures and presence of nickel mineralisation demonstrate that the ultramafic unit is prospective for nickel sulphides.
The Ghan Well ultramafic komatiite unit extends over six kilometres along strike and only 400 metres of this ultramafic unit has been tested to date. The most prospective and largest zones are south of the existing drilling along the edge of Lake Carey.
The company is planning additional exploration including further drilling and a detailed moving loop electromagnetic survey to test the prospect for conductors.