Perth-based Impact Minerals Limited (ASX: IPT) is pleased to announce that the Company has significantly expanded its ground position at its new 100% owned Arkun project in the emerging new nickel-copper-platinum-metal-group metal province in the south west of Western Australia.

The expansion was prompted in part by the lodgement of Exploration Licence applications covering a vast area of some 10,130 square kilometres by Anglo American plc, one of the world's leading mining companies and an active explorer for nickel-copper and platinum group metals. Anglo's applications directly surround three sides of Impact's Arkun project.

Anglo's applications, which comprise one of the largest holdings by a single company in Western Australia, were lodged on the afternoon of 29 May 2020. This was shortly after Impact released its first announcement on Arkun that morning.

Impact Minerals Limited Managing Director Dr Mike Jones said 'We view the arrival of one of the world's largest mining companies in the middle of the Western Australian wheatbelt as a very positive endorsement our exploration targeting criteria at Arkun. In addition, it is also an endorsement of the entire concept of a new emerging nickel-copper-PGE province in this part of WA thanks to the recent discoveries at Julimar and Yarawindah.'

'In addition we think it is also a direct recognition of the importance of the proposed mobile belt in this part of the State, a belt we have recently understood to be explored for diamonds in the past, and that we interpret to be a deep structure that may have tapped the mantle and allowed nickel-copper and platinum group metals to migrate into the crust.

'Such deep structures are critical components to the formation of major deposits like Nova-Bollinger and the recent discovery at Mawson. Impact is currently completing reconnaissance work along roads and tracks to move this exciting project forward before grant whilst waiting for statutory drilling approvals at our priority nickel-copper-PGE project at Broken Hill,' Dr Jones said.

About the Arkun Project

The Arkun project, which now covers about 1,900 square kilometres, is centred between York and Corrigin 130 km east of Perth and was first identified as an area of anomalous nickel-copper-gold anomalies in publicly available regional geochemistry data sets.

A subsequent interpretation of regional magnetic data by Impact has identified the area as lying within a major deformation zone or mobile belt that trends NW-SE from the Moora-Julimar-Yarawindah area through Arkun and which may contain deformed and metamorphosed equivalents of those rocks. This belt is generally not recognised in many regional geology maps and yet is self-evident in the magnetic data. This is a significant breakthrough in understanding for Impact.

The mobile belt is about 500 km long and up to 30 km wide, and is of a scale that suggests it may mark an ancient terrane boundary or proto-craton margin. Such geological provinces (of varying ages) are well known around the world as prospective terranes for hosting major nickel-copper-PGE deposits with examples such as Nova-Bollinger and Mawson, the Thomson fold belt in Canada and the recent discoveries at Yarawindah and Julimar in Western Australia.

In addition, the project is centred on a significant WNW-trending gravity high evident in regional gravity data and numerous 'eye structures' in regional magnetic data similar to those at Nova-Bollinger. Such gravity and magnetic anomalies are used as targeting criteria for similar deposits throughout the AlbanyFraser Province and globally (ASX Release 29 May 2020).

Contact:

Tel: (61 8) 6454 6666

Email: info@impactminerals.com.au

(C) 2020 Electronic News Publishing, source ENP Newswire