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Terra Metals Uncovers High-Grade PGM Sulfide Discovery at Dante Project

Terra Metals (ASX: TM1) has uncovered a high-grade platinum group metal (PGM) sulfide discovery at the Southwest prospect within its Dante project in Western Australia.

Second-pass assay results from reverse circulation drilling at the SW5 target returned individual assays grading up to 52.97 grams per tonne PGE3 (the total of platinum, palladium, and gold) within broad mineralised intervals starting 48m from surface.

The results have substantially upgraded the tenor of mineralisation previously reported at SW5—confirming the presence of extensive and high-grade PGM-copper-nickel sulfides within the Southwest corridor, which now spans more than 850m in strike length and 250m in width.

“When you intersect nearly 53g/t of PGMs from near surface, you don’t need to over-explain it—the rocks speak for themselves,” managing director Thomas Line said.

“What excites me most is that this isn’t a one-off hit—we are seeing high-grade PGM sulfides emerging across multiple targets outside the current resource in a setting that strongly favours scale.”

Shared Feeder Conduit

The SW5 discovery builds on earlier PGM-copper-nickel sulfide mineralisation intersected in two holes at the SW6 target, supporting the interpretation that mineralisation at Southwest is linked to a shared feeder conduit or magma plumbing system.

Terra believes the spatial association of high-grade PGM sulfides with oxide-poor mafic units to be consistent with focused sulfide melt accumulation proximal to a conduit zone rather than isolated and unrelated centres.

Importantly, SW5 mineralisation occurs at shallow depths, highlighting the potential for a straightforward open-pit development scenario at Southwest.

“I’ve worked on major platinum deposits around the world and never seen a hard-rock intersectionwith PGM grade anything close to this,” the company’s chief metallurgist Evan Kirby said.

“In South Africa, the only comparable grades were found in the dunite pipes (Driehoek, Mooihoek, and Onverwacht) mined in the mid-20th century.”

Previous SW5-SW6 Assays

Previous discoveries at SW5 and SW6 featured highlight assays of 8m at 1.35g/t PGE3, 0.12% copper, 0.18% nickel and 24.7% magnesium oxide from 142m and 47m at 1.01g/t PGE3, 0.10% copper and 0.12% nickel from 163m to end of hole including 5m at 1.71g/t PGE3, 0.21% nickel, 0.11% copper and 23.8% magnesium oxide from 188m.

A drill hole in the second-pass results generated additional support for system-scale mineralisation.

It returned broad zones of PGM-copper-nickel anomalism, as well as locally elevated nickel and copper grades, to extend the mineralised footprint to the northwest and reinforce the presence of a coherent, multi-horizon sulfide system at Southwest.

“Dante is proving to be one of the most compelling polymetallic systems in Australia in decades, and the Southwest prospect is now clearly a driver of that story,” Mr Line added.

Source: SmallCaps