Cornwall Resources Ltd reported new areas of mineral prospectivity near surface for tin and tungsten within the company’s licence area west of Redmoor.
PHASE I
The results are from the first data released today in the Deep Digital Cornwall (DDC) project which aims to help create businesses applying digital solutions to below ground, mining and geothermal opportunities.
Cornwall Resources – a subsidiary of Strategic Minerals plc – and Cornish Lithium are both involved in collecting geochemical and geophysical data.
Phase I comprised a total of 1,702 collected soil samples and 910 gravity survey points.
Cornwall Resources found tin, including 1% Sn (10,000ppm) or 1.06% Sn(Eq) with potentially significant results for further follow-up activity.
The company also reported the likely presence of two subsurface granite “upwellings”.
Strategic Minerals executive director and Cornwall Resources director Peter Wale said that the DDC datasets confirmed that mineralisation likely continued to the west of Redmoor and the Target Tip Valley (TTV).
“Historically, this area has been under-explored and unmined and provides likely targets for further future investigation and exploration.
“CRL [Cornwall Resources]’s experience at Redmoor has indicated that grades often increase significantly at depth, as the source granite is approached.
“A new granite model, developed from the DDC gravity survey, showing that the granite likely rises closer to surface to the west of TTV is therefore encouraging and provides the potential to expand on the existing resource for what the UK Government now defines as critical minerals, such as tin and tungsten at Redmoor.”
PHASE II
The DDC project now moves to the second and final phase for which Cornwall Resources will receive up to £446,063 and match fund 20% (£111,516).
The company began Phase II in June 2022 with soil sampling and will now add targeting infill around soil and gravity anomalies and new aerial and drone surveys.
The drone-based surveys of a section of the Redmoor licence will be completed in Q1 and Q2 2023.
Cornwall Resources will also participate in a DDC-funded aerial survey covering DDC partner areas of interest.
The company continues preparations for a drill programme which it has postponed to 2023 due to a shortage of available drill rigs.
DDC
The £4.1m DDC project, which includes £3.3m of grant funding, is led by the University of Exeter’s Camborne School of Mines.
Cornwall Resources has used its grant to use its Redmoor exploration licence area, of a JORC (2012) compliant resource (11.7mt @ 1.17% Sn (Eq), as a field laboratory.
The results to date also improve the company’s understanding of the granite body below its licence and help identify targets for future exploration.