Rare Earths Exploration Commences At Arden

Auroch Minerals (ASX:AOU) (Aurochor the Company) is pleased to announce that exploration has commenced at the Arden Zinc-Copper Project (Arden, Auroch Minerals 90%) in South Australia to investigate the potential for the project to host Rare Earth Elements (REE) mineralisation.

Highlights:

• Desktop studies and site visit completed, and field exploration underway to examine the Rare Earth Elements (REE) potential at the Arden Project in South Australia
• The Hawker REE Prospect and the Kanyaka Copper-REE Prospect have been identified as priority target areas to focus initial exploration programmes
• Previous rock-chip sampling identified anomalous REE values up to 1330.59ppm, 556.54ppm and 388.99ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO)
• Interpreted airborne magnetics shows potential for covered mafic diapirs and diapiric brecciation, which are considered to be an important source and potential host rock for REE mineralisation
• The Hawker Prospect is located approximately 25km west from Taruga Minerals Limited’s (ASX:TAR) Morgan’s Creek REE-Cu Prospect where REE mineralisation is hosted within near- surface clays close to outcropping diapiric breccias 1
• Exploration is to include a first-pass soil sampling programme to identify geochemical trends to define priority targets for a follow-up drill programme

The Company completed desktop studies of the Arden Project utilising high-resolution airborne magnetics flown in 2018, all historic surface geochemistry data and the mapped geology to identify two priority areas for potential REE mineralisation, the Hawker REE Prospect and the Kanyaka Copper-REE Prospect (Figure 1).

At both prospects the interpreted airborne magnetics shows potential for covered mafic diapirs and diapiric brecciation, which are considered to be an important source and potential host rock of REE mineralisation, respectively.

Furthermore, assays from rock-chip samples taken in 2018 from historic trenches and shallow workings identified anomalous REE mineralisation at the Kanyaka Copper-REE Prospect, with values up to 1330.59ppm, 556.54ppm and 388.99ppm Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO) (see Table 1 for full table of results).

The Hawker Prospect is located only ~25km west of Taruga Minerals Ltd’s (ASX:TAR) Morgan’s Creek REE-Cu Prospect where Taruga have identified shallow Ionic Adsorption Clay (IAC) REE mineralisation in a similar geological setting.

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