Galileo Mining
(ASX:GAL) shares surged nearly 30% on Tuesday after it revealed it had found what could be a major extension of its increasingly promising Callisto PGE find near Norseman in WA’s goldfields.
The company told the ASX the new find could be part of a five-kilometre line of strike that up till now is untested.
That was enough to send the shares up more than 29% to 70 cents as the statement tantalised investors with hints of a major expansion of the already very promising Callisto prospect.
From previous reports and this one, it now seems the Callisto prospect is emerging a major PGE discovery but of a size smaller than the massive Gonneville (Julimar) find of Chalice Mining northeast of Perth.
Galileo has been fleshing out the existing Callisto mineralisation with close-in drilling, but on Tuesday revealed that a step out diamond drill hole had discovered a “thick sulphide zone completely open to the north and east.”
The company said it is the “widest drill intersection recorded to date with 72 metres of mineralisation with what seems to be two main areas of mineralisation.”
The hole in this announcement was a reverse cycle (RC) hole which produces material more quickly. Diamond drills can take more time and analysts tend to put more store in their results than on the speedier RC dills which can produce solid indications of mineralisation more quickly.
Galileo said the drill results support Galileo’s geological interpretation that the five kilometres of untested strike length to the north of Callisto is highly prospective for further discoveries.
The company will start a new drilling campaign with the current stepout hole to be followed by one immediately adjacent to the discovery hole mentioned above.
Galileo’s CEO Brad Underwood said in Tuesday’s statement that the “results are firm confirmation of our view that we have only just started to comprehend the full extent and potential of our Callisto discovery.”
“To intercept 72 metres of sulphides from our northernmost drill line targeting the centre of the host intrusion is an extraordinary result and a highly encouraging sign for the potential discovery of more mineralisation along strike to the north.
“Our geological interpretation indicates that there are multiple mineralised rock units in the area and that the source of these rocks may exist further to the north and east.
“We will be testing this concept over the coming months and are very excited to be exploring a newly discovered palladium-nickel district.”
“We have five kilometres of prospective rocks to the north of Callisto and, with $20 million in cash (as at 31 December 2022), we have the funding to thoroughly explore the area without needing to raise money in a difficult market,” he added..
Galileo had been looking for nickel and copper in the Norseman area and Callisto produced early high readings for the metal, rhodium, but that now seems to have skewed towards PGE3, copper and nickel (and cobalt) if any after drilling in the back half of 2022.
The best way to describe Callisto is a palladium-platinum-gold-rhodium-copper-nickel discovery” and Galileo says that the “massive sulphide assays from Callisto reveal a new style of magmatic nickel-copper-cobalt with potential for high-grade zones within the growing mineralised system.”
In that respect it is similar to Gonneville and other emerging finds Chalice is making at Julimar but Chalice’s finds have a a cobalt content while Callisto’s have rhodium (at the moment).
Rhodium assays have to be done after the initial assays for platinum, palladium, copper, nickel and gold, so the market is waiting to see if there are signs of that metal in the new area.
