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Location: 70 km NE from Halls Creek, Western Australia, Australia
Level 3 1060 Hay StreetPerthWestern Australia, Australia6005
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Panton is the highest grade primary platinum group metals (PGM) deposit in Australia, with mineralisation defined across three components within a JORC (2012) Mineral Resource Estimate; the Reef, the High Grade Dunite and the Bulk Dunite. The High Grade Dunite is at the contact and runs parallel to the Reef throughout the entire deposit.The Panton deposit is part of the Panton layered maficultramafic intrusive complex which intruded into the central zone of the Halls Creek Orogen. The Halls Creek Orogen consists of three north-north-easterly trending, highly deformed, medium to high-grade metamorphic zones comprising sedimentary, volcanic and intrusive rock suites. The orogen separates the Palaeoproterozoic Kimberley Basin to the northwest, and the Australian Craton to the southeast.The Panton Intrusion has undergone several folding and faulting events that have resulted in a south westerly plunging synclinal structure that is 9km long, 3km wide and 1.7km thick. The intrusion comprises a basal ultramafic zone with minor chromite seams within the dunite and peridotite cumulate rocks. This unit also contains fine grained intercumulus disseminated sulphides. The basal ultramafic is observed to be either sheared or having a chilled contact with the Tickalara sediments. This basal ultramafic unit is subsequently overlain by a second ultramafic which hosts the chromite-rich olivine cumulate rocks that host the primary PGM reef resource. This ultramafic is overlain by a mafic zone that is comprised of leucogabbro, gabbro, ferrogabbro, pyroxenite, gabbronorites and norites. The top of the intrusion is comprised of anorthosite.A number of structural deformation events are present. This has resulted in large scale folding, faulting and widespread shearing of the ultramafic/mafic sequence. The intrusion is asymmetrically folded into a tight syncline, which gently plunges to the southwest. The fold is closed at the north-eastern end and faulted off in the southwest. Other dominant structural features include the numerous small scale and lesser large-scale faulting. The main orientation of faulting strikes north-south with nearly all having a sinistral movement sense; horizontal fault displacement from cm scale to the order of 1,000m for the Panton Fault which separates the C and D sub-Blocks. Vertical displacement along the Panton Fault indicates the C sub block was uplifted and the D sub block dropped. The extent and orientation of vertical displacement is still being determined. Faulting orthogonal to the northsouth faulting is present but less pronounced.The interpreted weathering profile for Panton resembles the topographic profile. A thin veneer of highly weathered material consisting of predominantly red-brown soil, alluvium and colluvium covers much of the project area. The physical weathering ranges from a few centimetres up to 15m but is largely confined to less than 1m. Chemical weathering is observed in drilling along structures and layers surrounding the reef where magnesite has altered the dunite.The PGM mineralisation within the intrusion is predominantly associated with the high chromitite bearing seams which vary from 10cm to 5m averaging 0.9m in thickness. Where dunite is interbedded between the chromitite reefs, further high grade PGM mineralisation is present within the disseminated chromite. This mineralisation is contained within the upper ultramafic sequence which has been further divided into multiple domains including the upper and lower reefs and associated footwall and hanging wall dunite mineralisation. Two other PGM bearingchromite horizons have been identified, one in the upper mafic sequence and the other in the basal ultramafic unit of the Panton intrusion. Additionally, fine grained intercumulus chalcopyrite-pentlandite mineralisation has been observed in the basal ultramafic with stringers of sulphide observed in multiple drill holes.The focus of this Scoping Study is the Reef and High Grade Dunite mineralization. The High Grade Dunite sits predominantly in the footwall of the Reef and significantly increases the underground mining widths of the deposit, allowing for conventional mechanized mining equipment to enable good productivity and higher mining rates. Ore sorting allows for a focus on mining ore recovery, higher development productivity and the separating of ore for its respective process flow sheets.The Panton deposit remains open at depth. There is also potential to discover additional sulphide-rich mineralization with historical and recent focus being primarily on the chromitite reefs. The Bulk Dunite additionally provides significant scale potential for a higher throughput operation.
