Eclipse Metals reveals 75-fold Greenland rare earths resource upgrade

Eclipse has revealed a 75-fold resource upgrade for its Gronnedal carbonatite-hosted rare earths project in southwest Greenland, based on deeper historic diamond drilling data to a maximum depth of about 200m.

Eclipse Metals (ASX: EPM) has unveiled a transformational 89-million-tonne (Mt) resource upgrade at its remarkable Gronnedal carbonatite-hosted rare earths project in southwest Greenland.

The company’s latest mineral resource tonnage upgrade represents an eye-watering 75-fold increase from its inaugural February 2024 estimate of 1.18Mt resource tonnes - based on shallow drilling and trenching - to the latest 89Mt.

The average grades for the inaugural and latest upgrade estimates are 6859 parts per million (ppm) total rare earths (TREO) and 6363ppm TREO, respectively.

With the hefty boost in resource tonnage, the total contained TREO tonnage has leapt from 8070t to a whopping 567,600t, equating to a 70-fold increase in TREO content which significantly enhances Gronnedal’s scale, strategic value and resource potential.

Eclipse’s share price catapulted from $0.005 on Friday to $0.015 by market close today on news of the resource update, representing a 200 per cent hike on almost 109M shares traded.

The resource is hosted within the north-trending, 8-kilometre by 3km Proterozoic Gronnedal Complex in the Gardar Province in southwest Greenland.

The rare earth elements are concentrated in a carbonatite intrusive and surrounding rocks. The extensive outcrop has been mapped in detail and the extent of the geological units that host rare earths is well defined and understood.

Up until now, the known carbonatite has been the focus of exploration.

Notably, the company’s first resource estimate is based on data from 2023 exploration trenching and shallow drilling programs. This data relates to an extremely limited area and is vertically constrained to within 12m of the natural surface level.

The company estimates its drilling program likely swept less than 5 per cent of the total volume of the carbonatite known at the time.

In stark contrast, the new resource update is based on Eclipse’s 2024 review of analyses of 23 selected core samples from six diamond holes put into the project to a maximum depth of about 200m in 1950 by cryolite miner Kryolitselskabet Oresund to test for a potential iron ore deposit.

This is a transformational milestone for Eclipse and positions the Gronnedal rare earths deposit as a globally significant rare earths project. With 89 million tonnes now defined, and evidence suggesting we are only scratching the surface, Gronnedal rare earths has the scale and grade to become a cornerstone asset in global efforts to secure independent critical mineral supply chains.

Eclipse Metals Director Carl Poppal

Eclipse initially ran a non-destructive Minalyze X-ray diffraction (XRF) test of the 1950s diamond core.

It found anomalous rare earth signatures for the six key rare earth elements - cerium, neodymium, europium, gadolinium, terbium and dysprosium - which extend to the maximum 200m depth of drilling in some cases.

That revelation let the rare earths cat out of the bag and Eclipse hastened to arrange confirmatory laboratory wet analyses of the 23 selected core samples, focussing on the four high-value magnet rare earth elements neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium.

The four critical rare earth elements have become vital for producing the powerful permanent magnets used in electrical automotive and power generation applications.

For its proposed wet chemical validation, Eclipse employed sampling protocols approved by the Greenland government for the 23 sample intervals it saw as representing key lithologies for analytical testwork.

While the newly defined resource scale has blown out massively, it still represents a small portion – maybe as little as 6 per cent - of an impressive rare earths-endowed carbonatite intrusive, which Eclipse says it has now confirmed through extended surface mapping and electromagnetic surveys.

Rare earth mineralisation defined by the latest resource estimate extends from surface to at least 200m depth over an area measuring 500m east-west and 400m north-south.

Furthermore, the current resource is 100 per cent inferred. Also, mineralisation is not structurally controlled and appears to be pervasive throughout the sampled areas of the carbonatite body.

Rock chip sampling results show significant mineralisation elsewhere within the carbonatite and externally, where mineralisation is associated with enclosing nepheline syenite rocks.

The company says the rare earths mineralisation could be mostly continuous from surface to depths beyond 500m, and it appears to remain open in all directions, further bolstering the resource’s potential.

Although the rare earths grades average about 6000ppm TREO in the initial and upgraded mineral resources, a quick review of the 23-sample dataset reveals a 9929ppm average TREO assay, with a maximum 20,092ppm TREO and a still-meaningful 1822ppm TREO minimum. Moreover, 12 samples assay better than 10,931ppm TREO.

A 17,597ppm TREO result includes 4269ppm neodymium oxide.

The average magnet rare earth oxide value from the entire suite is 2758ppm, with a top hit of 6124ppm. The average combined praseodymium and neodymium value is 2601ppm, with a best hit of 5821ppm. Both top hits are part of the top TREO result.

The average neodymium oxide assay across the 23 samples exceeds 2000ppm, which highlights the consistent tenor of the element through to the current limit of drilling.

The upgraded resource comes with the full suite of key rare earth subsets, including 529,889t of light rare earth oxides and 222,705t of magnet rare earth oxides.

The high tenor of the sample suite and the remarkable upgrade of the estimated resource based on just six shallow holes reinforce the project’s potential as a strategically located and globally significant source of critical rare earths.

While the new mineral resource estimate already makes a compelling case for pressing ahead with further evaluation, laterally and to depth, it seems certain the project has far more to give, with careful and persistent evaluation.

This would almost certainly include progressive geological and geophysical mapping over the full area of the complex.

Two distinct styles of rare earth mineralisation have been defined by Eclipse within the shallower part of the Gronnedal carbonatite system, correlated with depth and alteration.

These styles include an upper zone comprising mainly carbonatite breccia, with consistent rare earths distribution and moderate neodymium enrichment from 19 per cent to 22 per cent TREO.

The shallow zone contrasts with a lower carbonate-rich section of the core with higher neodymium concentrations of 25 per cent to 56 per cent TREO.

The company concludes that an increasing Nd+Pr ratio with depth could reflect geochemical enrichment driven by carbonate alteration and leaching processes, which could become an important avenue of follow-up structural and geochemical study.

This distinction between potential ore sources offers Eclipse a possible dual pathway for targeting high-value magnetic rare earths in its future drilling and resource expansion.

Although no open pit optimisations have been undertaken, Eclipse believes potential exists for a very low strip-ratio open pit mining operation, given the deposit’s high-grade characteristics and high concentration of in-demand magnetic rare earths, such as neodymium and praseodymium.

The Gronnedal project is in a geopolitically stable and mining-supportive jurisdiction with deep-water access. It is close to transport infrastructure and could offer a secure, long-term supply of critical rare earth elements outside the dominant global suppliers.

Eclipse believes the project’s ferro-carbonatite host has similar mineralogy to other well-known rare earths deposits worldwide and would be similarly amenable to economic flotation extraction, followed by further downstream specialist processing.

Eclipse says it is fast-tracking plans for further drilling to define the broader potential of the Gronnedal carbonatite complex and expand its resource base.

The program will include deep diamond drilling to include high-grade zones to deliver a further resource upgrade to support moving on to scoping and pre-feasibility level studies. Further work will also include other technical studies and metallurgical testwork.

Meanwhile, the company is also engaging with strategic partners and government stakeholders in Europe and North America.

Greenland is endowed with potentially the largest deposits of rare earth elements outside China, especially when hard rock sources are considered. But while the country’s deposits are significant, containing an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of rare earth reserves by current estimates, there is little to no current production of the metals.

Greenland features two major rare earth projects with large reserves, including the Tanbreez and Kvanefjeld projects. The Ilimaussaq complex alone is estimated to hold more than 11Mt of rare earth oxide equivalent.

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