Kairos Minerals’ lithium hunt has struck early success with the first hole drilled hitting pegmatites at its Lucky Sump prospect near Mt York in the Pilbara. The initial hole of a 16-hole program intercepted a 5m pegmatite hit whilst an additional two holes also recorded pegmatite intervals between 2m and 3m.
Due to the success of the initial results Kairos says it is planning further RC drilling at the prospect in addition to the newly identified Zakanaka target 2km north of Lucky Sump.
The follow-up drill program will get underway once the company receives assay results from the latest campaign.
Kairos Minerals Managing Director, Dr Peter Turner said: “We have made a highly promising start to our first lithium drilling programme, successfully intersecting pegmatites at Lucky Sump. We eagerly await both the mineralogical assessment and laboratory analyses of the samples.”
Lucky Sump seems appropriately named after five spodumene pegmatite samples grading up to 1.9 per cent lithium oxide were discovered at the end of June when earth-moving equipment was digging a sump as part of a gold drilling program at Mt York about 100km south-east of Port Hedland.
The company says the multiple spodumene pegmatites form part of a larger swarm at Mt York only 4km south of Pilbara Minerals’ Pilgangoora lithium-tantalum mine.
Only one of the planned 16 holes was unable to be drilled because of unprepared earthworks whilst two holes did not reach the 150m target depth due to the presence of hard volcanic rocks.
In July Kairos confirmed it had joined the ranks of the million-ounce club following a significant increase to the mineral resource at its Mt York gold project that now boasts a 1.1-million-ounce asset base up about 26 per cent from previous projections.
The flagship project now boasts a 28.01 million tonne resource running 1.23 grams per tonne gold up from a 2020 figure of 20.9 million tonne at 1.30 g/t gold for 873,500 ounces.
Kairos is currently in the midst of an 89-hole diamond and RC-diamond program at Mt York where it is targeting extensions of the resource outside the current model.
Nine diamond holes have been completed that have all intercepted sulphide zones for a total of 2844m drilled. The company says it expects to continue seeing very thick sulphide-silicified zones associated with mineralisation outside the current resource estimate.
The company says drilling to date has tested positions along much of the 3000m strike length of the Main Trend mineralisation that has not been drilled effectively in the past.
First assay results from the current campaign are expected at the end of December or early next year.
Whilst Mt York continues to provide positive gold results for the company, the lithium potential of Lucky Sump will have the market eager to see assay results.
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By Matt Birney
