Geological mapping at Galan Lithium’s Greenbushes South project in WA’s South West has led to the discovery of a significant new pegmatite outcrop that runs over 500m in strike length and importantly remains open. The campaign follows previous exploration at the site that unveiled the operation’s first pegmatite lens in a highly prospective area coined “GS11”.
The new pegmatite spans across a trio of outcrops and stretched about 500m x 400m. The discovery dwarfs the initial find at GS11, which covered an area of around 200m x 40m.
Galan is ramping up its battery metals hunt at Greenbushes South and recently got its hands on the first batch of 65 geochemical soil results from a sampling program completed around the initial discovery.
The company says the exercise delivered encouraging results that ran up to 215 parts per million lithium, along with anomalous scores of pathfinder elements such as caesium and ardennite.
The results came via an analysis technique known as “UltraFine+”. The procedure is the brainchild of two leading scientific bodies; the CSIRO and LabWest and is seen as an established process of sniffing out sensitive mineralisation through shallow and moderate cover.
Perth-based Galan is now waiting on assay results from an additional 170 soil samples collected around the initial discovery along with 15 rock chip samples.
Given the encouraging results from the maiden batch, management says it will subsequently reprocess all of its historical soil samples from Greenbushes South using UltraFine+.
Galan believes the pegmatite at GS11 shares macroscopic mineralogy analogous to those found inside pegmatites at the revered Greenbushes lithium mine 15km north - the world’s largest hard-rock lithium deposit.
Talison Lithium’s Greenbushes mine churns out around 1.95 million tonnes of lithium spodumene each year and is at the tip of the spear in terms of hard rock battery metals assets.
Galan Lithium’s Managing Director, JP Vargas de la Vega said:“Geological mapping and geochemical sampling activities are ongoing. There are further soil and rock sample assays pending, including those to be submitted from our newest pegmatite discovery. We have also launched a pilot ground geophysics program to overlay our exploration targeting efforts at Greenbushes South. All of this work is driving us towards the key outcome of premium target locations for our initial drilling program.”
Greenbushes South is under the banner of two ASX-listed lithium players, Galan and Lithium Australia NL.
The ownership rights were split last year when Galan agreed to sell a 20 per cent stake and form a joint venture with Lithium Australia.
For decades the ground around Greenbushes South has been the centre of tin and tantalum exploration however, recent exploration has primarily been focused on the discovery of base metals and lithium pegmatites.
Outside of its hard rock efforts in Australia, Galan has its grips on a 2 million tonne-plus lithium equivalent resource at its wholly owned Hombre Muerto West brine project in the Argentinean province of Catamarca.
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By Matt Birney
