Metalicity’s accelerated push into battery metals is off to a flying start, with a geochemical survey just 35km along strike from the giant Greenbushes lithium mine identifying two high priority targets for pegmatites under cover.
The ASX-listed explorer last week stepped up its pursuit of battery metals after finalising terms for a Canadian spin-off of its Admiral Bay deposit, the largest undeveloped zinc deposit in Australia.
The company’s high-priority targets generated from the latest round of exploration are tantalising and their proximity to the world’s most impressive and lucrative lithium mine at Greenbushes adds a further layer of excitement.
The 100%-owned project is just north of the Greenbushes lithium mine and on strike along the Donnybrook-Bridgetown Fault that controls the lithium-rich pegmatites at Greenbushes.
Given the ground is immediately north of Greenbushes and the scramble for lithium resources, it is something of a mystery as to why this area has not been thoroughly tested in the past. One possible reason might be that lateritic cover rocks in the area have made it more difficult to find outcropping pegmatites.
Metalicity is attempting to overcome the challenge of cover with some clever exploration technology in the form of highly sensitive geochemical surveys. New assay technology can routinely detect trace elements in the laterites in quantities as small as parts per billion, which could point to paydirt in the rocks below.
It probably doesn’t hurt either that Metalicity’s consultant geologist, Ralph Porter used to work at Greenbushes.
The company this week reported that a geochemical sampling program at Greenbushes North on a 1km grid had highlighted anomalies that defined two priority target areas over an area of about 30 square km.
Importantly, the anomalies follow structural trends, clustering around the Donnybrook-Bridgetown Fault.
Exploration planning is now underway to follow up on the identified targets with sampling on a much tighter grid of 250m x 250m. The lateritic sampling will be augmented by rock chip samples of any pegmatites that are located, in order to vector in on the mineralised sections.
Metalicity Managing Director, Matt Gauci, said: “The exploration program has identified important criteria for the discovery of buried lithium-cesium-tantalum-type lithium pegmatites similar to those which host the world class Greenbushes deposit.”
"Firstly, the sampling methodology used identified two significant lithium index anomalies and secondly, the clustering of these anomalies is located over the same fault zone which controls the Greenbushes deposit.”
By Matt Birney
