Taruga Minerals Limited announced that the first batch of assays have been returned for the rare earth focussed drilling program at Morgans Creek (100% TAR), within the 1,500km2 Mt Craig Project (MCP; 100% TAR). The program was comprised of 2,156m of RAB drilling over 59 drillholes. Drilling (Figure 2) was focussed on testing strike extensions of clay-hosted rare earth element (REE) mineralisation intercepted at Hydrothermal Hill in 2021 in weathered Yednalue quartzite (Figure 1).

The partial results are non-selective, and contain approximately 35% of the total samples despatched. Samples were despatched in order of drilling and have been returned in that same order. The majority of the returned samples were from far north extensional drilling between 1400m and 900m north of Hydrothermal Hill.

Only 3 out of the 27 holes drilled at Hydrothermal Hill have been returned to date, with key intervals in the remaining assays being expected back before the end of October. In addition to having a high proportion of high-value magnet rare earths, the clay-hosted REE mineralisation at Morgans Creek contains low cerium, and low thorium and uranium. Having low levels of the radioactive elements uranium and thorium is highly beneficial for downstream processing of rare earth element concentrates.

Low cerium levels also provide significant processing benefits and mean that there are higher concentrations of the high-value REEs in the basket. The vast majority of the Yednalue Quartzite strike remains undrilled. Infill and extensional drill planning is currently underway.

Several RAB drillholes are believed to have not reached the base of mineralisation, and the holes were ended early due to poor sample return. Therefore, in addition to infill and extensional drilling, Aircore or RC drilling will be used for the next phase to drill underneath RAB drill intercepts which are interpreted to have not reached the base of mineralisation.