Mount Ridley Mines Limited (ASX: MRD) announced on 6 August 2026 the crucial results from its first automated mineralogy (TIMA) study on material from the Grass Patch Complex in Western Australia. Mount Ridley Mines Ltd is an Australian critical minerals explorer focused on the discovery and development of heavy rare earth elements, gallium, and scandium across its wholly owned Western Australian projects. This study provides the first direct evidence of how rare earth elements (REE) are hosted within the deposit, a key input to the Company’s beneficiation strategy ahead of its Phase 1 metallurgical testwork program.
The TESCAN Integrated Mineral Analyzer (TIMA) study, completed by AXT Pty Ltd, confirmed that rare earths at Grass Patch are almost entirely hosted within three distinct phosphate minerals: xenotime, crandallite group phosphates, and monazite/rhabdophane. Xenotime, a strong potential host for valuable heavy rare earths, was identified as the most common. These phosphates are fine-grained and closely associated with clay, sitting within the shallow, weathered regolith profile characteristic of Grass Patch.
These findings are critical for defining the processing flowsheet, as REEs occurring as discrete phosphate minerals open new processing options. The results identify a potential pathway to physically concentrate rare earths prior to leaching, which could significantly cut the volume of material fed into the Company’s Phase 1 metallurgical testwork program. Mount Ridley Mines Managing Director & CEO, Mr Allister Caird, noted these results provide a basis to investigate flotation, similar to successful applications by peers with comparable deposits.
Consequently, liberation and flotation testwork will now be fast-tracked to inform this beneficiation opportunity. Bench-scale flotation testwork will assess achievable concentrate grades and recoveries across various grind sizes. This pathway offers the company operational flexibility in managing the extraction phase, with results set to integrate with outcomes from the ongoing Phase 1 metallurgical testwork program.
