Significant Expansion of the Arkun Strategic and Battery Metals Project, WA

Impact Minerals Limited (ASX:IPT) is pleased to announce that it has applied for three new exploration licences covering 720 km² north of and contiguous with the company’s 100%-owned Arkun project, located 150 km east of Perth in the emerging mineral province of south-west Western Australia (Figures 1 and 2).

• Three new Exploration Licence applications submitted immediately north of the Arkun project along trend from the recently discovered REE soil geochemistry anomalies at Hyperion, Swordfish and Horseshoe as well as the Caligula copper anomaly.
• The new licences cover a further 720 km² and increase the size of the Arkun project to 2,900 km² in the emerging mineral province of southwest WA.
• The new licences are considered highly prospective for a range of strategic and battery metals, including REE and copper-nickel sulphides.
• Two significant EM conductors identified in government airborne EM lines that have never been drill-tested are priority areas for follow-up work.
• Statutory approvals and land access agreements are in progress for a maiden drill programme at Hyperion and other targets, alongside negotiations with drilling contractors.
• Soil geochemistry surveys are ongoing in the north and west parts of Arkun.

Impact Minerals’ Managing Director, Dr Mike Jones, said, “After the recent significant breakthroughs in the soil geochemistry programs that discovered our Hyperion and Caligula prospects, we have been able to expand our strategic ground holding in the emerging mineral province of the southwest Yilgarn province in Western Australia. The new applications contain strike extensions and similar geology to our newly discovered prospects and are easily accessible, allowing us to start groundwork quickly following the usual land access negotiations. We are also looking forward to our maiden drill program at Arkun early in the next Quarter and are well advanced in the approvals process and securing the appropriate drill rig.”

The three applications (ELA70/6598; ELA70/6604 and E70ELA/6595) share similar geology to and are along strike from the large and significant soil geochemistry anomalies recently identified for Rare Earth Elements (REE) at Hyperion, Swordfish and Horseshoe and copper-bismuth-cobalt at Caligula (ASX Releases January 4th 2024 and January 24th 2024). There has been no significant previous exploration of the new licences.

Impact now holds a strategic ground position that covers 120 km of trend of the Corrigin Tectonic Zone (CTZ) which marks a major crustal boundary between the South West and Youanmi Terranes of the Yilgarn Craton (Figure 1). The CTZ is host to major gold deposits at Katanning (>3 million ounces gold) and copper at Calingiri (>3 million tonnes of copper) as well as mafic-ultramafic rocks similar to those at the Julimar deposit (>10 million ounces of palladium).

Figure 1. Location and regional geological setting of Impact’s Arkun and other projects shown in blue in the emerging mineral province of southwest Western Australia. Significant nickel deposits are shown in orange, lithium deposits in green and gold deposits in yellow.

Impact considers the central and western part of the (CTZ) region to be highly prospective for a range of strategic and battery metals including REE, copper and nickel as well as gold and a significant number of targets have been identified within the current Arkun project area (Figure 2). Impact is looking to drill several of these anomalies in the next Quarter.

Two strong conductors have already been identified as priority areas for follow-up work in regional airborne electromagnetic data within the new licences (2.5D inversion of SkyTEM data: Figures 2 and 3).

Line 200401 has a 400 m by 300 m conductor at about 120 m depth (Figure 2), and Line 200501 has a 500 m by 200 m conductor dipping steeply west at 100m depth (Figure 3). The EM anomalies line up along a fault splay linked to Impact’s Caligula copper anomaly and this adds a further 40 km of prospective strike length to the Arkun project.

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