Critical minerals, Discovery, News, Rare earths

Falcon snaps up significant mineral sands discovery

Falcon mineral sands

Falcon Metals has uncovered a thick, continuous zone of high-grade mineral sands at the Farrelly prospect within the Pyramid Hill gold project in Bendigo, Victoria.

The thick zone of mineralisation within Farrelly covers an area of around 1200m by 600m and remains open in several directions. Additional high-grade zones were also identified up to 5km to the north of the main zone, indicating a potential large-scale strandline style system.

The mineralisation was discovered from a 91-hole aircore (AC) drilling program conducted at Farrelly.

“The results at Farrelly are quite outstanding and define what appears to be a discovery of a continuous zone of high-grade heavy mineral sands over a sizable area, which remains open,” Falcon Metals managing director Tim Markwell said.

“While it is early days in our understanding of Farrelly, with more drilling and test work required, it is shaping up to become a significant mineral sands deposit, in proximity to other major deposits, but at far higher grades.”

Initial mineralogical work on the first phase of AC drill holes suggested a favourable heavy minerals assembly including zircon, ilmenite, and rutile. A potential rare-earth element bearing monazite and xenotime is yet to be assessed.

“We need to assess the heavy mineral assemblage, and further work is needed on the sizing, clay content and recovery, which are all important factors in progressing mineral sands projects,” Markwell said.

“There is also an opportunity to look at the critical minerals content with the potential for monazite and xenotime, containing important rare-earth-elements.

“Importantly, we have not yet defined the limits of the high-grade zone and drilling to test this is expected to recommence in the summer once harvesting is completed, in parallel with our gold exploration at Pyramid Hill.”

Falcon Metals expects to recommence drilling in the fourth quarter of 2024. The new campaign is set to define the extensions of the main zone within Farrelly.

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