Titanium Sands Ltd (ASX:TSL) continues infill drilling at Mannar Island Heavy Mineral Sands (HMS) Project in Sri Lanka aimed at confirming mineralisation continuity and growing resources.
Drilling has reduced the nominal resource drilling pattern down from 400 metres by 50 metres to 200 metres by 50 metres over 90% of the resource envelope.
A total of 802 holes were drilled with sampling intervals of 0.5 metres.
Samples have been prepared in the company’s Pesalai facility before being sent to a mineral sands laboratory in South Africa for assaying but visual observation indicates good continuity of mineralisation
READ: Titanium Sands extending heavy mineral sand tenure in Sri Lanka via acquisition
Drilling re-started on the Mannar project in March with the aim of producing a further resource update in mid-2019.
The drilling was designed to address:
- Lateral and below the water table extensions to the existing resources;
- Infill drilling on high-grade portions of the existing resources;
- Test new target areas on the tenure.
Drilling is initially being undertaken by hand auger teams using shell augers which have been proven very effective on the above water table drilling in obtaining excellent sample recovery and precise sample depth control.
TSL has also acquired a reverse circulation (RC) aircore drilling rig and after modifying it to suit the Mannar Island project, aims to begin drilling shortly.
This rig will supplement shallow auger drilling by providing capacity to drill deeper and provide first pass evaluation of material below the water table.
Mineral products sighter test-work
A composite sample of heavy minerals was consigned for mineral products sighter test-work to Allied Mineral Laboratories in Perth.
The test work involved using laboratory scale conventional separation technologies.
A composite 4-kilogram sample derived from total heavy mineral sinks from 277 samples in 48 drill holes in the resource zone was submitted for analysis.
The sighter test demonstrated ‘excellent’ recovery of 86.5% of the titanium oxide into a composite ilmenite product with a further 2.5% recovered into a minor rutile product.
This test-work also indicated a zircon product could potentially be recovered and a further substantial result was the identification of a substantive 8.7% almandine garnet component in the composite sample.