TREK METALS
Gold & Rare Earths
Gold, Rare Earths (Au, REE)
Trek Metals has secured a district-scale greenfields gold and rare earths exploration opportunity in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia after securing the acquisition of an extensive portfolio previously part of Newmont
Exploration Pty Ltd’s (Newmont) global exploration portfolio.
Christmas Creek
Former Newmont project in the Kimberley represents a Tier-1 greenfields exploration opportunity
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Christmas Creek
Proven team with deep battery market experience
Summary
The Christmas Creek Project, located south-west of Halls Creek, represents a previously unexplored, largely concealed district-scale gold and rare earths exploration opportunity, associated with a major continental-scale tectonic lineament intersection.
The Project covers a total area of 1,183km2 , all of which is covered by Heritage Access Agreements, with total exploration expenditure to date of ~$5.7 million.
The Project previously sat within Newmont’s suite of exploration projects, held under a joint venture
with Archer X Pty Ltd (Archer X). Under the previous joint venture and earn-in agreement, Newmont
successfully earned a 75% interest in the Project. Newmont subsequently relinquished that interest following a rebalancing of its global exploration portfolio, returning the Project to 100% Archer X ownership.
Figure 1. Continental scale context and location map for the Christmas Creek Project, located at the intersection of G3 and G5 metallogenic lineament corridors, potentially representing the intersection of the Granites-Tanami Orogen & the Halls Creek Orogen.
Archer X targeted the area asit believed it may be an extension of the prolific Granites-Tanami Orogen (Figure 1), exposed as a basement high, with metasediments in the area showing a correlation to the Tanami host sequences. Newmont’s Tanami mine, located in the Northern Territory, is one of global significance, with Proven and Probable Reserves of 5.7Moz, with an additional 4.2Moz in Resources (as at 31st December 2022, refer to Newmont news release from 23rd February 2023:
The Tanami mine has been owned and operated by Newmont since 2002, producing an average of 500koz of gold each year.
Four major prospects have been identified within the Christmas Creek Project area – Martin, Coogan, Zahn and Willis (Figure 2) utilising Newmont’s proprietary Deep Sensing Geochemistry (DSG) which has been developed to explore for mineralisation concealed under cover.
The presence of bedrock gold mineralization has been confirmed by drilling at Martin and Coogan, although both these prospects remain sparsely drill tested, in particular Coogan with drill lines approximately 1km apart. The strong gold surface anomalism at Zahn remains unexplained in drilling and there has been no drilling to date at the Willis Prospect.
Apart from the main prospect areas, Trek believes the project area has considerable additional exploration potential given there are several additional surface geochemical anomalies that have not been fully defined or tested. Of note is a large gold anomaly located about 12km to the south-west of Coogan along the same structural trend (Figure 5). This anomaly has been defined by very broadspaced (2 x 1km) geochemical sampling and extends over about 8km.
Figure 2. Continental scale context and location map for the Christmas Creek Project, located at the intersection of G3 and G5 metallogenic lineament corridors, potentially representing the intersection of the Granites-Tanami Orogen & the Halls Creek Orogen.
Figure 3. Drill-hole locations over Gold DSG surface geochemistry, showing air-core (AC) drilling completed at Martin & Zahn, reverse circulation (RC) drilling completed at Coogan, Martin & Zahn, and remaining prospect areas with no drilling to date.
Trek believes that additional opportunities are present in the project area, such as the potential for rare earth element (REE) mineralisation, given the project’s proximity to the Cummins Range REE deposit.
The Cummins Range Project, owned by RareX Limited (ASX:REE), is adjacent to the project tenements in the south-east of the Christmas Creek Project. This is hosted by a weathered carbonatite in the Cummins Range Intrusive Complex, with an Inferred and Indicated Resource of 519Mt at 0.32% total rare earth oxides (TREO) and 4.6% P2O5, for a contained 1.6 million tonnes of contained TREO and 24 million tonnes of contained P2O5 (refer ASX:REE announcement 1 May 2023). Sampling conducted by Newmont indicates areas with elevated rare-earth elements (lanthanum, cerium and yttrium), typically highlighting resistate minerals such as monazite in alluvial regolith. To the east of the Project’s Zahn prospect, approximately 7km west of the Cummins Range Project, elevated REEs are coincident with elevated magnetics and could reflect carbonatite dykes.
A battery metals focussed mineral explorer
Why Trek Metals
