South Woodie Woodie Manganese Project
Project Overview
The South Woodie Woodie Manganese Project comprises nine granted Exploration Licences and eight Exploration Licence Applications covering a total area of 2149km2 in Western Australia’s emerging East Pilbara Manganese province.
The tenements lie along strike and to the south of the 1.2Mtpa Woodie Woodie Manganese Mining Centre (operated by Consolidated Minerals Limited) and in close proximity to several emerging manganese projects which are being actively explored or developed.
Contact and the Contact North Discovery
During the exploration phase of 2010/ 2011 Spitfire discovered two near-surface ore bodies that hold significant amounts of mineralised manganese. These deposits are named “Contact” and “Contact North”.
The Contact zone was identified as being highly prospective to hold Manganese deposits as this area contains the Carawine Dolomite rock formation. This Rock type is well known to be the host rock for high grade manganese deposits throughout the Eastern Pilbara. The discovery lies 10km north-west of Spitfires existing Tally-Ho deposit and approximately 70km directly south of Consolidated Minerals Woodie Woodie manganese mine.
Contact Deposit
The Contact Deposit is very shallow in nature and the mineralisation starts from surface to a maximum depth of 38m. The mineralisation thickness varies from 3m to 17m thick over a 500m by 250m dimension.
Highlighted assay results received from the Contact discovery to date include are:
11m @ 22.02% Mn from 15m (CON047), including:
- 5m @ 26.44% Mn from 15m
- 2m @ 32.56% Mn from 16m
10m @ 21.12% Mn from 27m (CON007), including:
- 6m @ 27.80% Mn from 30m
- 2m @ 29.92% Mn from 33m
17m @ 16.80% Mn from 13m (SWW121), including:
- 5m @ 20.08% Mn from 13m
- 5m @ 20.88% Mn at 23m
6m @ 20.51% Mn from 12m (CON040), including:
- 2m @ 25.78% Mn from 12m
It was noted that the manganiferous drill chips separated from the non-manganiferous chips relatively easily when sieved so Spitfire’s geologist took the initiative to submit in-field sieved samples for assay.
This was conducted by wet sieving (using a +2mm hand sieve) a representative portion of the composite samples. These results returned assays of up to 41.80% Mn over a 4 metre composite (See table 1).
Table 1 – Product upgradeability summary, 1m RC Comp vs. in the field wet +2mm wet screen. Note: all holes were drilled vertically
Current status of the Contact Deposit:
- Infill RC drill programme Completed
- Diamond Drilling Completed
- Resource evaluation modelling underway
- Metallurgical test programme on the diamond core underway
Contact North Deposit
The Contact North Deposit was located in part by the strongly highlighted targets generated by the Gradient Array IP survey performed prior to the drill programme. This indication correlated well over the existing Contact drilling and enabled Spitfire to specifically target drill for high grade manganese.
The drilling in the Contact North area has returned by far the best results for manganese grade and thickness in the company’s history. Further RC drilling step off holes have shown strong results extending over an area greater than 500m in length and width. Best assays from the Contact North Holes are as follows:
20m @ 23.06% Mn from 51m (CON039), including:
- 16m @ 24.26% Mn from 53m
- 5m @ 29.50% Mn from 57m
- 2m @ 34.23% Mn from 57m
- 1m @ 37.27% Mn at 58m
11m @ 26.54% Mn from 38m (CON064), including:
- 4m @ 29.25% Mn from 38
- 2m @ 34.80% Mn from 40m
11m @ 20.21% Mn from 55m (CON067), including:
- 6m @ 24.8% Mn from 58m
- 1m @ 33.33% Mn at 60m
- 1m @ 32.00% Mn at 62m
7m @ 21.06% Mn from 36m (CON068), including:
- 4m @ 29.48% Mn from 36m
- 2m @ 30.45% Mn from 38m
- 1m @ 32.65% Mn at 36m
7m @ 20.76% Mn from 49m (CON066), including
- 5m @ 23.93% Mn from 49m
- 1m @ 30.88% Mn at 49m
Based on these very promising results from Contact North Spitfire has started planning the next round of drilling to find the boundaries and then infill drill this deposit to obtain a JORC resource.
As with the Contact deposit specific field samples have been washed through the same +2mm wet sieving technique to ascertain if the Contact North Ore could also be easily upgraded (See table 1).
Table 2 – Product upgradeability summary, 2m RC Comp vs. in the field wet +2mm wet screen. Note: all holes were drilled vertically.
Simple washing of this composite shows that Contact North has the potential to be easily upgraded to a DSO product. 3 PQ Diamond holes have now been drilled onto Contact North and metallurgical testing of this ore is to commence shortly.
Resource definition program
The Contact deposit was the first to have the infill programme completed and when the entire assay suite has been received, interpretation of the ore body and subsequent Modelling will begin. Firstly an inferred model will be created to test the ore body’s characteristics and with the additional data from the metallurgical test work combined with the close spaced drilling an indicated Resource is expected to follow.
The Resource modelling of the Contact North will begin shortly after the commencement of the upcoming infill drill programme. Metallurgical testing of the Contact North PQ core would have been completed prior to this enabling an accurate ore characteristic to be included into the model. An inferred resource for Contact North is expected by the end of the year.
Tally-Ho Manganese Deposit
The Tally Ho target was Spitfire’s first significant discovery within the South Woodie Woodie Project area, and comprises a zone of near-surface manganese mineralisation.
In May 2010, the Company announced an expanded JORC compliant Inferred Resource estimate for the Tally Ho deposit comprising 2.94 million tonnes grading 7.07% Mn, with results from preliminary metallurgical test work indicating the material can be beneficiated to achieve a manganese product grading around 40% Mn.
Inferred Resource estimate as at May 2010 quoted incorporating all modelled blocks within mineralised envelope wireframe. Calculated by independent resource consultants Optiro Pty Ltd.
The updated resource was based on results of resource extension drilling which increased the resource strike length by approximately 480 metres to 680 metres.
In addition, the resource estimate represents a ‘fully diluted’ resource, with the grade of 7% Mn reflecting the inclusion of barren material between the high grade seams.
Spitfire believes there is excellent potential to further increase the resource inventory at the Tally-Ho deposit. A program of targeted RC drilling is planned during 2012 to extend and in-fill the current JORC Inferred resource. Further metallurgical test work is also planned to improve the precision of current beneficiation and yield figures.
Exploration Program
Spitfire’s exploration programme is based on three fundamental principals;
- Mapping and understanding the Ground
- Specific Geophysical surveys of the mapped areas
- Targeted Drill programmes
With the flow of information from these principals and the combined knowledge of the Staff and consultants each exploration programme has been more and more successful.
The Mapping programme for the upcoming field season will cover 2 primary areas of interest, one to the North West of the Contact North deposit and the other to the south. The northern area will target the local faulting between the Manganese and the Hamersley group rocks as this is known to be a conduit for the manganese mineralization. While the Southern area spans over a large Chert dome known to cover Carawine Dolomite.
Both of these areas are to be covered by the next round of Gradient Array IP surveys and from these results drill targets will be generated and drilled in the 2011/2012 drill campaign.
