Pebble Creek Mining (PEB-V, PBLEF-O) has released a National Instrument 43-101 resource estimate for its flagship Askot project, in northern India’s Uttarakhand state. At a net smelter return cutoff of US$100 per tonne, indicated resources stand at 1.86 million tonnes grading about 2.6% copper, 5.8% zinc, 3.8% lead, 38 grams silver per tonne and 0.5 gram gold. Inferred resources total 149,000 tonnes averaging 1.7% copper, 4.6% zinc, 1.9% lead, 29 grams silver and 0.4 gram gold.
Geophysical and geochemical testing found anomalies along another 3,000 metres of strike length, and the company is planning more drilling in the fall. A technical report on the volcanogenic massive sulphide property is scheduled for September.
India-focused Pebble Creek is also hoping to ride the red-hot potash market. The company has applied for a potash reconnaissance permit on a 6,000-sq.-km land package in the Nagaur-Ganganagar basin, in a desert in Rajasthan state.
The Nagaur-Ganganagar basin occupies 100,000 sq. km and has nine evaporite sub-basins. Evaporites are mineral salts that precipitated in brine pools as seawater evaporated. The sub-basins range in diameter from about 1,000 to 3,000 metres.
The Geological Survey of India (GSI) has drilled 72 holes totalling 62,000 metres, concluding that the Hanseran evaporite group has a total thickness of 100 to 650 metres. It contains seven cycles of halite (sodium chloride) formations at depths of 300 to 1,200 metres. A cycle usually has a thick halite bed, with potash beds at or near the top. The most common potash minerals in the Nagaur-Ganganagar basin are polyhalite, sylvinite, sylvite, langbeinite and carnallite.
Pebble Creek’s permit applications are in three non-contiguous blocks of 2,000 sq. km each, covering seven of the sub-basins. The Satipura, Bharusari and Lakhasar sub-basins were reported by GSI as having the highest grades and thickest deposits, with potash beds found mainly at depths between 500 and 750 metres.
The GSI has provided historic resource estimates that should be treated with caution as they were based on only 72 holes, which were drilled in an uneven pattern over a 50,000-sq.-km area.
It estimated a resource of 400 million tonnes potash containing 4.6% potassium (half of which is in Satipura, and the remainder in Bharusari and Lakhasar). At a lower degree of certainty, the GSI estimated a resource of 2 billion tonnes potash containing 4.6% potassium.
Once received, a reconnaissance permit can be converted to a prospecting licence and then to a mining lease.
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