Benmara Project

“The Benmara Project is complementary to our nearby Wollogorang Project, which is highly prospective for sedimentary hosted battery metals Copper and Cobalt. The geographic location will allow RML to focus our Australian exploration efforts on battery metals in the Northern Territory in 2021.

This fits with our Company mantra of “hunting for giants - in big country” with gold in Alaska at our flagship 64North Project and copper in the Northern Territory at the Wollogorang and Benmara Projects.”

- Managing Director Duncan Chessell

OVERVIEW

Resolution Minerals holds a commanding ground position of 2,230km2 in the South Nicholson Basin, which is one of the most under-explored sedimentary basins in Australia. The Benmara Project is along-strike from the Walford Creek Cu-Ag-Pb-Zn-Co and Westmoreland U Deposits on the Fish River Fault in the Northern Territory. 

In late 2021 RML completed a “proof of concept” 15-hole RC drilling program that successfully intersecting the target geological units that are equivalent to those that host the McArthur River, Lady Loretta, Walford Creek and Century Deposits confirming the prospectivity of the project.  

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DRILLING PROGRAM

OZ MINERALS FARM IN AND JV AGREEMENT

In May 2022 Resolution Minerals entered into a significant, multi-year farm-in and joint venture agreement with copper focussed mid-tier mining company, OZ Minerals Limited (ASX: OZL). OZL can earn a 51% interest by spending $4m over 5 years. The agreement will allow RML and OZL to fast-track the search for copper discoveries on the Benmara Project, located in the South Nicholson Basin in the Northern Territory.

OZ Minerals is a modern mining company that’s focused on creating value for all its stakeholders. As one of Australia’s largest copper producers, OZ Minerals owns and operates the Prominent Hill and Carrapateena mines in South Australia. Collaboratively, OZ Minerals and Resolution have a strong commitment to safety. 

READ MORE ABOUT THE AGREEMENT

EXPLORATION STRATEGY

Resolution has assessed the Benmara Project for sediment hosted stratiform base metal mineralisation, using the Walford Creek Deposit as an analogy. The Company has used a variety of data sources including its recent VTEM MaxTM survey, historic company data, as well as considering the new Geoscience Australia interpretation of the geology and the updated SEEBASETM depth-to-basement Model of the surrounding basin architecture.

Recently, the prospectivity of the region was greatly enhanced by work undertaken by the “Exploring for the Future” initiative, which included contributions from Geoscience Australia (GA), University of Adelaide, NTGS and University of Melbourne (Carson, et al., 2020). Geochronology published by Geoscience Australia in 2020, demonstrates the Benmara Group is older than previously thought. Importantly GA determined that the Benmara Group is Paleoproterozoic instead of Mesoproterozoic, and stratigraphically and temporally equivalent to the prospective Fickling Group (Walford Creek Deposit Cu-Pb-Zn-Ag-Co) and the McNamara Group (Century Mine Pb-Zn-Ag). i.e. the right age and type of rocks are present.

During 2021 Resolution completed an extensive VTEM MaxTM geophysical survey over the central zone of the tenement, targeting the basin margin where prospective onlapping sediments from the South Nicholson abutted the Murphy Inlier. The proposed model is the Murphy Inlier and acts as a wall directing upwelling fluid flow carrying metalliferous fluids to flow up the Fish River Fault. These fluids then flow up and through the potentially reductive sediments close to surface. The shaley-reductive units can act as traps sites for base metals to precipitate, potentially forming deposits. Due to the often-pyritic nature of these reductive units, they are detectable by VTEM surveys as conductive rocks or massive sulfides. Benmara is prospective for this mineralisation model.

Resolution completed a RC drilling program in late 2021 to follow up anomalies uncovered by the VTEM MaxTM geophysical survey. This program successfully intersected the target geological units that are equivalent to those that host the McArthur River, Lady Loretta, Walford Creek and Century Deposits.

RML is very positive about the results of this exploration work and is planning further geophysical and drilling programs for the 2022 dry season.