Reach Resources has mobilised Strike Drilling to start a 9000m phase-two reverse-circulation (RC) drill program at its 100 per cent-owned Morrissey Hill lithium project in Western Australia’s Gascoyne region – right next door to the notable Delta Lithium discovery.
The campaign is designed to follow up anomalous results from previous drilling at the Bonzer prospect where all of the company’s phase-one drillholes hit multiple thick, stacked pegmatites, with some individual intercepts up to 30m long. It plans to focus on targets both east and west along strike from Bonzer.
Reach’s first drilling campaign followed up results from surface sampling conducted around Bonzer, which returned soil values of more than 750 parts per million lithium oxide and rock-chip values of up to 2.3 per cent lithium oxide, 4295ppm caesium and 706ppm tantalum.
Some of the new drilling meterage will be directed to test at least six or more pegmatite targets beyond Bonzer, which were identified during previous field work and which have received heritage clearance. They include new targets identified by consultants Sugden Geoscience from analysis of the company’s soil, rock-chip and previous drilling results.
Reach Resources chief executive officer, Jeremy Bower said: “We see the initial drill program at Bonzer as a first step towards success at Morrissey Hill. The initial results provided us with the encouragement to double our drilling metres in Phase 2 of the drilling program. The data we have from exploration at Morrissey supports our contention that the project holds the potential to host high grade lithium, like the Delta discovery next door.”
The Morrissey Hill tenement is just 8km from Delta’s Malinda prospect, which is part of that company’s famed Yinnetharra lithium project. It contains not only the Bonzer lithium prospect, which encloses the biggest area, but it is also surrounded by eight other well-defined lithium prospects with anomalous lithium in rock-chip samples. They all of lie within 2km of Bonzer, except for Martin’s Reach about 4km to the south-east.
The tenement contains many pegmatites mapped by the Geological Survey of Western Australia and others. The Yinnetharra area is noted for its pegmatite occurrences and has been mined in several localities, including for pegmatite-hosted tantalite at Morrissey Hill and Camel Hill.
In all, it means there is a bit lining up in Reach’s favour ahead of the truth diviner telling the company’s next story.
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