Appia starts exploration at Alces Lake rare earth deposit
Figure: Midnight during the summer solstice, view from camp on Alces Lake, northern Saskatchewan. Image from Appia.
Appia Energy (CSE: API) announced Monday that Phase I exploration activities have begun on the company's high-grade rare earth element Alces Lake property in northern Saskatchewan.
Appia's 100% owned deposit, according to the company, hosts some of the highest rare earth elements (REE) mineralization in the world, hosted within a number of surface and near surface occurrences that remain open at depth and along strike. At a 4 wt% total rare earth oxide cutoff, Alces Lake average grade is 16.65 wt% Total Rare Earth Oxides (TREO).
"Of global rare earths deposits, Alces Lake has the potential to be no. 2 in terms of grade, it's one of the richest prospects in the world," Tom Drivas, CEO, Appia Energy told MINING.COM.
"Of global rare earths deposits, Alces Lake has the potential to be no. 2 in terms of grade, it's one of the richest prospects in the world"
Tom Drivas, CEO, Appia EnergyAppia has defined 7 high-grade REE occurrences at surface within an area measuring 150 m x 100 m. Surface channel sample highlights include 22.35 wt% total rare earth oxide (TREO) over 6.21 m from the Ivan zone.
Follow-up drilling in summer 2019 intersected 16.06 wt% TREO over 15.55 m, including 49.17 wt% TREO over 3.7 m, both starting within 10 m of surface in diamond drill hole IV-19-012.
Phase I of a two-Phase summer exploration program is designed to discover additional surface and sub-surface high-grade REE occurrences.
Details for Phase I include regional ground prospecting, mapping and sampling over historic REE occurrences and along two 2 km-long trends with previously identified radiometric showings of interest; ground geophysical surveys to attempt to map the REE minerals and structural system beneath the surface in order to prioritize drill targets.
Exploration permits for Phase I have been received. Phase II of the summer exploration program is anticipated to start between late July and early August.