Hawkstone Mining has chalked up some impressive new intersections from an infill diamond drilling program at its flagship Big Sandy lithium clay project in Arizona, US.
The first assay results from the second program undertaken over the Northern Mineralised Zone have confirmed two separate, thick horizons of high-grade lithium mineralisation, that the company has denoted the Upper Zone and Lower Zone.
Best results include 23.3 metres grading 2,154 parts per million, or “ppm”, lithium from 6.7m down-hole for the Upper Zone and 35m @ 2,078 ppm lithium from 31m down-hole for the Lower Zone, in the same vertical drill hole.
Another hole, 200m to the southwest, turned up 19.5 metres grading 2,200 ppm lithium from 11.5m down-hole for the Upper Zone and 34m @ 1,941 ppm lithium from 32m down-hole for the Lower Zone, highlighting the consistency of the width and the grade at Big Sandy.
According to the company, the 37-hole phase two program is well advanced, with geological core logging and sampling ongoing, as it collates all the data required to support a maiden JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate for the key Northern Mineralised Zone.
The current drill program is aimed squarely at testing the continuity, lateral extent, grade and thickness of this Zone to assist in the definition of this new resource.
Late last month, Hawkstone unveiled an Exploration Target for Big Sandy, saying the project could contain between 242.1 million tonnes and 417.6 million tonnes of mineralised clays grading from 1,000 ppm to 2,000 ppm of lithium.
Whilst the majority of this target lies within the Northern Mineralised Zone, a thicker, but slightly lower grade, Southern Mineralised Zone was also delineated, about 7.5km to the south southeast.
Regarding the Exploration Target for Big Sandy, Managing Director Paul Lloyd said: “The Exploration Target marks a significant milestone for the company, in under 12 months we have moved from project acquisition through to advanced drilling, building significant momentum towards our objective of defining a JORC resource.”
“The Exploration Target forms part of an aggressive exploration program with the maiden drilling program confirming significant lithium mineralisation and recent metallurgical testing identifying successful leaching of the lithium from the clays.”
“With diamond drilling continuing and further assays pending, the company expects a stream of significant newsflow over the coming months.”
Based on the early assay results from infill drilling of the Northern Mineralised Zone this week, the company appears well on its way to proving up a sizeable mineral resource for Big Sandy in the near future.
By Matt Birney
