Altona (LSE: REE) has announced that it has identified three large untested gallium soil anomalies after a review of its soil sampling database at the Monte Muambe rare earths project in Mozambique. This review was initiated, following the discovery of high-grade drilling intercepts, to identify new possible occurrences of gallium.
Cedric Simonet, CEO of Altona, commented, “I am very pleased with the soil geochemistry results, which clearly show the presence of a large gallium mineralized system at Monte Muambe, justifying a specific work programme. These anomalies being untested, this opens the possibility that mineralized zones with higher grades than those observed so far exist, and that more exciting gallium discoveries will be made in the near future.”
In holes MM039 and MM040 gallium showed a correlation with neodymium and praseodymium. No correlation was observed with aluminium. These observations strongly suggests that gallium is contained in one of the rare earths minerals occurring at Monte Muambe. It is therefore expected to be recoverable in the rare earths minerals flotation concentrate.
The potential recovery of gallium during the hydrometallurgy process remains to be assessed through advanced metallurgical studies. Gallium recovery is being integrated in on-going metallurgical studies for both rare earths and fluorspar.
The review of gallium concentration in soil shows the presence of three discontinuous but defined anomalies, with gallium in soil up to 190g/t:
- A linear 1.3km long anomaly along the Western edge of the carbonatite intrusion, the northern part of which corresponds to the Fluorite Zone
- A curved 2.2km long anomaly along the Southeastern edge of the carbonatite intrusion
- A 500m long anomaly located just East of Target 6 (hole MM040), on the Northern edge of the carbonatite intrusion
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