Strategic Minerals upbeat on results of Cornwall digital project

Strategic Minerals updated the market on its wholly-owned subsidiary, Cornwall Resources (CRL), and its participation in the ‘Deep Digital Cornwall’ (DDC) project on Friday.

The AIM-traded firm said the project was led by the University of Exeter’s Camborne School of Mines (CSM), and CRL, along with Cornish Lithium, served as delivery partners.

It was funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and administered through the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

Strategic said CRL had completed all field activities associated with the DDC project and submitted a copy of the acquired data to the DDC Hub at CSM for long-term storage and public access.

The data included valuable information, including analytical data from 2,184 soil samples, providing a comprehensive overview of soil composition and properties within the project area.

A highly detailed ground gravity survey was conducted and subjected to a 3D interpretation, offering insights into subsurface geophysical features.

Furthermore, the DDC aerial survey covered a substantial 40 square kilometre area of the Redmoor region, producing electromagnetic and magnetic data.

Additionally, 460 metres of ‘BoxScan’ data was collected from CRL borehole CRD031, enhancing the understanding of subsurface characteristics.

The efforts resulted in a highly detailed and overlapping dataset, the firm explained, which was expected to significantly contribute to CRL’s understanding of its larger licence area’s geological and mineral prospectivity.

Additionally, it highlighted potential target areas that warrant further exploration activities.

In the post-field activities phase, CRL reviewed, analysed and interpreted the output datasets from DDC.

That would include digitising and mapping historical datasets and preparing for modelling, analysis, and interpretation of the aerial survey datasets.

Additionally, all geophysical datasets were integrated into a comprehensive case study.

Further targeting of soil anomalies for detailed study, follow-up field verification, and infill sampling was also part of the ongoing work.

Of particular note was the validation of the mineral prospectivity map (MPM), previously announced on 14 September, through soil sample results obtained from infill sampling.

That suggested that the exploration methodologies employed in the DDC programme effectively identified new geochemical targets and anomalies.

As part of the forward-looking activities, Strategic Minerals said a work programme had been initiated on target one, encompassing tin-tungsten and copper-lead-zinc soil anomalies near a previously identified granite upwelling and within a prospective zone highlighted by the MPM mapping.

CRL was also in discussions to advance further collaboration on DDC outputs, data interpretation, and follow-up activities.

“There are currently few comparative modern, highly detailed, and comprehensive datasets covering mineral licence operating areas in the UK, and fewer still examples of similar cost-effective datasets being produced,” said executive director Peter Wale.

“The CRL team has delivered a first-class outcome after the effective completion of the DDC project.

“This has in turn contributed to the overall successful completion of the DDC project.”

Wale said it was hoped that the outputs could be used to demonstrate to the government the effectiveness of regional datasets for project targeting and thus attract incentives to implement future projects.

“Now that DDC has come to an end, CRL aims to advance and analyse further the work undertaken through the completion of a case study, modelling of project data and follow-up exploration activities.

“We look forward to benefiting from these outputs.

“At this stage we believe that the outputs have provided valuable information which helps us reinforce our understanding of our existing resource and mineral rights.”

At 0925 GMT, shares in Strategic Minerals were down 1.82% at 0.108p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.