Ram Resources identifies niobium, tantalum, zirconium and rare earths at Motzfeldt

Ram Resources identifies niobium, tantalum, zirconium and rare earths at Motzfeldt
Ram Resources (ASX: RMR) has received the last of the results from follow up sampling at the Merino and Romney prospects, within the Motzfeldt Project in South Greenland.

Rock chip samples acquired over the two prospects returned potentially economic grades of niobium, tantalum and rare earth elements.

The best results from the two prospects were:

- 6,051 parts per million (ppm) niobium, 757ppm tantalum, 3.1% zirconium and 1.08% total rare earth oxides from Merino; and
- 6,156ppm niobium, 1,172ppm tantalum, 6,254ppm zirconium and 0.26% total rare earth oxides from Romney.

At Merino, good grades were identified over 1 kilometre strike. The heavy rare earth content at the prospect averaged 18.5%, with a peak result of 27.7%.

In addition, 18 of the 53 samples taken at Merino had grades of greater than 1,000ppm niobium. The best results came from the lower third of the profile at Merino, and mineralisation remains open to the southwest.

Grades at Romney were generally lower than Merino, however a cluster of high grades for all minerals of interest was identified at the north-eastern end of Romney and at the south-western end of Merino.

This indicates the potential for mineralisation to  occur within 1 kilometre between the two prospects.

Sampling was not carried out on this area due to scree and float covering the outcrop.

The Romney prospect is located in the Lejrelev Valley, about 3.5 kilometres west of Ram’s Aries Prospect, while Merino forms a steep-sided ridge at the north-eastern end of the valley, 2.5 kilometres north-northwest of Aries.

Earlier this week Ram released the final results from sampling at two new targets within the Motzfeldt project, Voskop and Drysdale.

Ram Resources CEO Mike Drew told Proactive Investors that the newly explored prospects offered considerably more blue sky for the project.

“We’re very pleased and excited by these additional targets, the results are quite good, they all occurred over a reasonable area,” Drew said.

“We see it as an important step to expand the exploration potential of the company substantially.”

Results from Romney and Merino show lesser degrees of alteration to Aries, where alteration is very intense.

Significantly, several of the high grade samples came from relatively unaltered nepheline syenites and syenites, indicated that mineralisation is not restricted to intense alteration.

Ram holds 51% of the Motzfeldt Project, and has the right to move to 100% either in one hit on July 20 this year, or through a staged option over a number of years by spending money on the tenements.

“We’ll evaluate whether we move from 51% to 100% once all of the results for the 2011 field season are in and properly analysed,” Drew said.

Originally published at: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/24108/ram-resources-identifies-niobium-tantalum-zirconium-and-rare-earths-at-motzfeldt-24108.html