Aston Project
The Aston Project covers a largely, contiguous land position of ~1,700km2 located in the Gascoyne Mineral Province (GMP) of NW Western Australia. The GMP has become a highly active exploration area following the recent discovery of significant lithium and REE deposits (Figure 1).
The 100%-owned, Aston Project was acquired in Q1 2023 following the purchase of separate tenement packages from eMetals Limited (ASX:EMT) and White Cliff Minerals Limited (ASX:WCN).
Minerals 260’s main tenement holding adjoins Delta Lithium’s (ASX:DLI) Yinnetharra Project (Figure 2) where significant spodumene-related mineralisation has been recorded in drilling and rock chip sampling*:
- Malinda Prospect
- 29m @ 1.39% Li2O from 121m
- 21m @ 1.13% Li2O from 77m
- 55.6m @ 1.12% Li2O from 94m
- Jameson Prospect
- Up to 4.2% Li2O in rock chips
* See Delta’s (formerly Red Dirt Metals Limited) release dated 12th September 2022
Approximately 6km of the prospective stratigraphy that hosts the Malinda and Jameson prospects has been defined within Aston tenements (Figure 3). Historic stream sampling has recorded strongly anomalous lithium coincident with this stratigraphy which will be a priority focus for future exploration work.
Numerous pegmatites and tantalum occurrences have also been recorded in the region by government mapping (Figure 2) further enhancing the lithium prospectivity of the Project.
Significant REE deposits/occurrences are located north and south of the Aston Project:
- Yangibana (Hastings) – MRE ~29.9Mt @ 0.93% TREO1
- Yin (Dreadnought) – MRE ~14.4Mt @ 1.13% TREO2
- Up to 5m @ 2.63% TREO3 in drilling
- See Hastings’ ASX release dated 6th February 2023
- See Dreadnought’s ASX release dated 29th March 2023
- See Kingfisher’s ASX release dated 24th April 2023
The primary host rock to the deposits listed above is the Durlacher Supersuite, which is common on the Aston Project, indicating good prospectivity for REE on Minerals 260’s tenure.
Exploration is ongoing at Aston, and readers should refer to the latest ASX releases for the latest results and planned work programs.