The Ziggy Stardust of exploration
June 21, 2023Impact Minerals began its long history as a garden variety Western Australian minerals explorer. Now it is set to challenge itself to become a global leader in producing high-purity alumina. Impact’s Managing Director, Dr Mike Jones, first came across Lake Hope through a serendipitous course of events.
“We originally started Impact to find a world-class deposit, and we believe we may have discovered one…on LinkedIn,” Dr Jones said.
“Although I did not know Roland Gotthard personally, someone from my team came across his LinkedIn page and discovered that he was involved in drilling for aluminium in a dry salt lake in Western Australia, which I found quite unusual,” Dr Jones said.
Dr Jones was vexed.
“We reviewed an interactive map of our project, 200 kilometres west of Roland. We were initially deceived by what we assumed was a comparable finding, possibly ten times larger than what he had previously discovered! However, that was not the case,” he said.
Although Dr Jones and his team were disappointed about their ground, they found that Roland had discovered not only a significant deposit of alumina at Lake Hope but also an innovative approach to extracting low-cost alumina from the top two metres of the lake bed.
The Lake Hope Project has now become the focus of Impact’s activities. Its unique nature is kind to the bottom line and the planet, offering a highly green, free-dig mining operation with straightforward metallurgical processing.
Two German investment firms have recently provided a $4 million investment to expedite the progress of the Lake Hope High Purity Alumina project, which is now in a Pre-Feasibility Study.
The initial signs are positive for this mining operation, offering a low-impact mining method and offsite processing using an affordable acid-leaching technique.
“This should reduce operating costs significantly, potentially making us more competitive than most other producers worldwide,” Dr Jones said.
Dr Jones was surprised to discover that a game-changing acquisition for the company came from alumina sourced from the middle of a salt lake. However, his inclination towards exploring uncharted territories, which he developed at Western Mining Corporation, could have contributed to this breakthrough. “Significant breakthroughs often occur when one works on the margins,” Dr Jones offers.
He suggests that operating effectively by thinking at seven standard deviations from the mean requires constantly gathering various types of information, establishing connections between them, and using them to extract value while conserving energy.
This is the right time to tell you this 61-year-old explorer has done the Rottnest Channel Swim solo. “Twice,” Dr. Jones adds. “I first competed in 2020 and followed it up in 2021. I was also placed 5th in the over 50s summer swimming season in 2022.”
In my mid-40s, I started swimming to practice mindfulness. I discovered by researching online about new techniques that helped me significantly enhance my performance.
I progressed from the beginner’s lane to swimming with the faster swimmers in my squad. It felt meditative and inspiring, and I improved my stroke technique using what I had learned. I noticed I was becoming faster while using less energy which was a revelation.
Exploration is like long-distance swimming, where we apply what we’ve learned and make many minor adjustments. It involves a comprehensive thought process that considers many different angles. When swimming, for example, each arm movement involves ten sub-movements, each with three adjustments totalling 30 minor adjustments. This approach makes the swim more enjoyable, and every stroke becomes essential.
IMPACT MIN FPO [IPT]
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