The Hooley Well Project is located in the Archaean Narryer Terrain in the far north-west of the Yilgarn Craton close to the boundary of the Gascoyne Complex. The Narryer Terrain is an elongated greenstone belt composed largely of metamorphosed sediments bounded by Archaean granites and gneisses, which predominate in the Yilgarn Craton. The land surface in this area is very weathered with little fresh rock outcropping.

Stream sediment sampling by previous explorers, recovered coincident nickel, chromium, and cobalt geochemical anomalies. This led to the discovery of a mafic/ultramafic body at an area called Claypan. Although the body is little understood through poor outcrop, it is known to contain nickel mineralisation.

A number of drill holes were drilled by previous explorers with one drill hole returning the results of 22 m at 0.9% nickel from the surface with a high grade interval of 4 m at 1.4% nickel. Adjacent drill holes also showed a broad zone of nickel mineralisation.

There remains a wide area to be tested with reconnaissance drilling and interpreted geophysics indicating a possible extension in area of the layered igneous intrusion. This area represents an opportunity to rapidly upgrade this project.

Exploration Programme

The area defined by the interpreted aeromagnetic survey will be gridded and covered by a ground magnetic survey to define the entire area of the body on the ground. The rest of the project area will be soil and stream sampled to locate any additional anomalies.

The layered igneous intrusion will be drilled on a grid basis to determine the extent of the nickel mineralisation, with a number of deeper drill holes to determine the geometry, ie whether the body is dipping or horizontal and to determine the mineralogy of the body.

Further work will be planned with the evaluation of the drilling programme.