Great Boulder Resources (ASX: GBR) has entered into a sponsorship agreement with Portable ppb Pty Ltd (PPPB) which will allow the company to access PPPB’s detectORE technology in its field exploration programmes.
detectORE, invented by Dr Mel Lintern at CSIRO, is a patented technology which enables handheld pXRF guns to detect gold values to less than 10ppb (parts per billion) in near real-time field samples.
Great Boulder Managing Director, Andrew Paterson, says this represents a massive potential gain in terms of time and expense, by speeding up the assay time from many weeks in a commercial laboratory to an overnight process in the field. To put this into context, current pXRF technology cannot detect gold in concentrations of less than 1,000ppb (1g/t Au). Gold-in-soil anomalies in Western Australia tend to be in the range of 10 to 50ppb. Using detectORE will enable GBR to quickly vector in on anomalous prospects, defining areas of interest with multiple rounds of soil geochemistry within a matter of days instead of months.
Mr Paterson said there is also potential for the technology to be used on composited and individual drill samples to reduce the volume and time involved with sending samples to Perth for gold and costly multi-element analysis.
Importantly, this will enable our geologists to receive quick feedback while drill rigs are on site and therefore make timely informed decisions on where to drill next,” he said.
detectORE is in the advanced research and development stage and not yet available for general commercial use.
Mt Paterson said that by partnering with PPPB as a sponsor GBR will be able to participate in field trials and ongoing development of the technology, gaining pre-competitive access and resultant savings.
“This sponsorship is very much in line with GBR’s philosophy of using new technologies to explore more efficiently wherever possible,” Mr Paterson said.
“I’m looking forward to working with Simon Bolster and his team at Portable ppb. This will be a step- change in our early-stage exploration, particularly in areas like Side Well where we have big areas of unexplored terrain to cover.”
PPPB was established in 2017 and later secured an exclusive global licence from the CSIRO to commercialise the detectORE technology. PPPB has conducted extensive field trials using a broad range of exploration samples from Australia and from around the globe to develop a process for in-field gold analyses using a simple, safe, robust and reliable process coupled with conventional off-the-shelf portable XRF.