JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – ASX-listed companies Aeris and Argonaut, which are in a 70:30 joint venture (JV) developing the Torrens iron‐oxide copper/gold (IOCG) project, in South Australia, are reviewing a decision by the Federal Court to dismiss applications for native titles over Lake Torrens.

The Lake Torrens overlap proceeding was initiated by the Federal Court to determine which of three native title claimant groups is entitled to hold native title rights and which claimed rights could be granted.

The Adnyamathanha people, the Barngarla people and the Kokatha people have held multiple native title claims over Lake Torrens since the introduction of the Native Title Act in 1993.

All three groups hold granted native title rights in areas adjoining the lake, but certain members of the Kokatha group fought against access to the Torrens anomaly on the basis that exploration works were incompatible with mythological beliefs held in regard to Lake Torrens and Andamooka Island.

Justice John Mansfield commented that there was no evidence of Kokatha occupation of any areas to the east of [the] western boundary of Lake Torrens at the time of first European contact, “or indeed.... until well into the 20th century, probably about the 1980s”.

As a result of this judgment, the Kokatha people will have significant difficulty in establishing standing to grant or withhold native title authority in the area of the Torrens anomaly.

“Confrontational litigation in the early stages of a mineral development project is not conducive to a long-term working relationship and Argonaut is grateful for the opportunity to restart access negotiations on the basis established by this judgment,” Argonaut said in a statement on Friday.

An application for authorisation to drill the Torrens anomaly will now be made in the absence of registered native title claims or granted native title rights. The JV also needed to reestablish certain expired government approvals.

The Torrens anomaly is confirmed to be the geophysical response to a very large IOCG system in the area of the Olympic Dam and Carrapateena mineral deposits.

“While Argonaut has for years sought a pathway through the legal quagmire at Lake Torrens, it has never advocated the denial of rights to parties with long-held connection to the area. The emotional investment by aboriginal witnesses is substantial and Argonaut empathises with those concerned,” Argonaut CEO Lindsay Owler said.

“To say this judgment simplifies the native title situation is an understatement,” he added.

THE TORRENS ANOMALY
The Torrens anomaly is a coincident magnetic and gravity anomaly with a footprint larger than that of Olympic Dam.

The anomaly is located over the Torrens Hinge Zone, a continent-scale zone of crustal weakness that appears to have been a conduit for mineralising fluids from the earth’s mantle.

Drilling of the Torrens anomaly by Western Mining Corporation in the late 1970s and by the Torrens JV in 2007 and 2008 confirmed the existence of a major IOGC mineralising system beneath several hundred metres of sedimentary cover.

More drilling is required to vector-in on the modelled copper-gold mineralisation. In the event of a discovery, Torrens has the potential to host a world-class copper-gold deposit.