Australian tungsten explorer Apollo expands drill target footprint in France
Apollo Minerals has identified additional zones of tungsten mineralisation at the Couflens project, in France, which has expanded the targeting footprint of the historical Salau mine and indicates a larger-scale system extending into multiple areas.
Apollo is undertaking an ongoing review of historical data on the project, especially since Salau was historically one of the world’s highest-grade tungsten operations, with grades averaging 1.5% tungsten trioxide, during its 15 years of operations up to 1986.
The company received and digitised a number of historical reports on the area from Bureau of Geological and Mining Research archives, in Orléans, which is aiding ongoing validation and interpretation efforts.
Among Apollo’s newly defined zones is Veronique-Upper zone, which exhibits intercepts of up to 4.3 m grading 1.3% tungsten trioxide and multiple intervals of unsampled historical core displaying logged mineralisation.
The Veronique and Veronique-Upper zones will be the immediate focus for Apollo’s planned Phase 1 drilling on site, given demonstrated mineralisation trends for more than 400 m along strike and 600 m along dip.
Notably, the Veronique zone was mined historically at 2.5% tungsten trioxide in the Salau mine’s final year of operation.
“Newly identified zones provide valuable targeting information as Salau was previously mined using a lower-grade cut-off of about 0.7% tungsten trioxide, which is significantly higher than that currently used by modern tungsten mines.
“Our review of historical data from the Salau mine continues to identify additional target areas for unmined mineralisation, with tungsten grades significantly higher than many current modern tungsten mines. Combined with the extensional targeting around the previously reported high-grade Veronique zone, the newly identified areas demonstrate the significant exploration potential of the globally unique Couflens high-grade tungsten project,” says Apollo MD Neil Inwood.