Magma metals explores platinum-palladium deposit: Australian miner starts scoping study on Thunder Bay-area property.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: COMPANIES TO WATCH

A greenfield discovery of high-grade palladium groups metals may evolve into the next big exploration hot-spot for base metals in northwestern Ontario.

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Magma Metals wrapped up a 50,000-metre drill program just before Christmas and has started a second leg of exploration to outline a platinum-palladium-copper-nickel at its Thunder Bay North project.

With so few press releases issued, the Australian junior miner has been operating largely under the radar, but the Perth-headquartered company should grab some headlines when a flurry of assay results will be released this winter.

The company has started a scoping study to assess the potential economics of its base metal deposit, located 45 kilometres north of Thunder Bay.

AMEC Americas Ltd. is managing the study and will conduct all the mining engineering, metallurgical and processing engineering studies. Results are due out sometime during the third quarter.

It's running in tandem with the environmental work and the permitting program being performed by Thunder Bay's DST Consulting Engineering.

In January, Magma fielded four diamond drills in a 45,000-metre campaign, mostly to infill its Bridge Zone and Beaver Lake areas.

About 8,000 metres of reconnaissance drilling is being directed at some untested targets on their Steepledge Lake property and at their Lone Island Lake complex.

Magma's drill program has revealed a 3.4 kilometre tube-like body of mineralization that is open along strike with several high grade zones intersected.

This winter's exploration will improve upon an initial resource of 690,000 ounces of platinum equivalent posted last September.

"We're going to outline and upgrade the resource we have now and better evaluate the potential," said exploration manager Allan MacTavish.

The project was recognized as the Discovery of the Year at the Northwestern Ontario Mines and Mineral Symposium in Thunder Bay last spring.

The company has gold, nickel, copper, zinc and PGM properties in Western Australia, but Thunder Bay North is its most advanced.

The northwestern Ontario project has a half-dozen exploration properties, including one-Black Creek-which is located within 20 kilometres of North American Palladium's Lac des Iles Mine.

Magma made its biggest Canadian splash to date with a listing on the TSX, Nov. 12.

In early January it was trading at a price of 0.72 per share on the volume of 38,000 shares.

"We hope the share price will come up with the release of new...