BlackEarth Minerals NL’s (ASX:BEM) ongoing exploration has identified potential additional, near-surface high-grade graphite at Razafy Northwest zone of the Maniry Graphite Project in Madagascar.
The company has completed 14 holes for a total of 650 metres in a 1,000-metre diamond drill program aimed at helping it better understand the scale and potential of the graphite domain and delineating further high-grade mineralisation to complement the initial stages of mining.
Core logging of the completed holes has revealed potentially high-grade graphite across numerous holes up to 15-20 metres in width from near surface.
Extending program
Encouraged by the initial observations along strike and at depth, the company is planning to extend the current program as mineralisation remains open at depth for half of the drill holes completed to a set depth of 50 metres.
BlackEarth managing director Tom Revy said: “The program to date is tracking as expected and although site activities were planned to be completed shortly, the board is excited with what it has seen to date and has decided to extend the drilling and trenching/mapping program further along strike and to the west.
“Depth extensions will also be tested as many holes have finished in mineralisation.
“Given this extension to the drilling program, BlackEarth is also likely to complete the necessary geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling as a critical part of its current environmental and DFS activities.”
High graphite content
The current drilling program at Maniry is founded on assay results generated from previous trenching conducted by BlackEarth which returned 48 metres at 10.22% total graphite content (TGC) and 12 metres at 13.32% TGC.
BlackEarth’s 2019 program excavated 47 trenches totalling 4,314 metres and has extended known mineralisation to potentially more than 5 kilometres in length.
Potential for further resources
The results from the current and previous exploration activities have highlighted the potential for further high-grade resources in the region.
Therefore, with the intention of realising the potential, the current program is being extended based on the visual reports.
Mineralisation continues to remain open for half of the drill holes that were completed to a set depth of 50 metres.
The technical team is preparing diamond core samples in Antananarivo which will then be sent to Perth for assaying.