LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Gold and base metal-focussed Rockfire Resources announced results from its January rock sampling programme on Tuesday, identifying a gold-copper-nickel-cobalt-platinum-palladium anomaly located two kilometres north of its Plateau Gold Deposit on the Lighthouse tenement in north Queensland, Australia.
The AIM-traded firm said the new anomaly, named 'Split Rock', was likely to enhance the prospectivity of the immediate vicinity of Plateau.

It said Split Rock shared access tracks with Plateau, enabling minimal mobilisation of rigs between the two prospects.

The company's technical team had found that the "highly anomalous" rock samples were associated with anomalous results from historical stream and soil sampling in 1982.

It said it believed that Split Rock represented an ultramafic-hosted anomaly, which could have been overlooked by previous explorers.

Rockfire said the rock samples returned peak values of 1% nickel, 0.2% copper, 510 parts per million cobalt, 0.8 grams of platinum per tonne, 0.5 grams of palladium per tonne, and 0.1 grams of gold per tonne.

The results, it claimed, represented the highest nickel and cobalt assays from within the Lighthouse tenement to date, with Split Rock being the only prospect within the tenement to be analysed for platinum and palladium thus far.

Historical stream sediment sampling by Penarroya Australia in 1982 outlined a distinct, circular copper-in-stream anomaly, which led Rockfire's geologists to start sampling in the Split Rock area.

Additionally, historical soil sampling by Ramelius Resources in 2012 at an adjacent prospect also covered Split Rock.

There was also historical rock sampling carried out by City Resources around 100 metres west of Rockfire's sampling programme, which returned results including 0.3 grams of gold per tonne, 3.5 grams of gold per tonne and 0.3% copper, but were never analysed for cobalt, nickel, platinum or palladium.

Rockfire said a high-response aeromagnetic anomaly could represent the target zone at Split Rock.

It noted that its field season had now started, with a field crew on site to undertake mapping, rock sampling and drone-hosted photogrammetry, and planned drill hole sites at Plateau to be pegged for drilling.

"This is the first time any ultramafic [or] mafic intrusions have been sampled at surface within our tenements," said chief executive officer David Price.

"The identification of rocks which bear highly anomalous nickel, cobalt, gold, platinum, and palladium potentially represents a whole new mineralised system, only two kilometres from Plateau.

"The geology at Split Rock and Plateau is completely different, as are the mineralogy and geochemistry."

Price said that, while it appeared to be a separate and distinct mineralised system, the shared access roads for Split Rock and Plateau would allow the company to minimise mobilisation of rigs between the two prospects.

"Our exploration to date at Split Rock consists of only a handful of rock samples.

"High-quality, historical stream sediment sampling led our exploration team into the Split Rock area, and more work is planned.

"However, the company will not be diverting its focus away from Plateau, which is far more advanced and deserves the lion's share of our attention and budget."

The next exploration step for Split Rock, Price explained, would be to complete a moving loop electromagnetic survey over the prospect, which was expected to highlight zones of massive sulphides.

He said the identification of any electromagnetic anomalies would become high priority drill targets.

"In the meantime, our exploration field season has now commenced, with a field crew arriving on site at Plateau this week.

"The objective of this programme will be to complete a drone-hosted photogrammetry flight over the prospect, as well as pegging sites in preparation for drilling at Plateau."

At 1107 BST, shares in Rockfire Resources were up 4.29% at 0.91p.

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