Gold explorer Aurumin hits lithium in WA pegmatites

Junior explorer Aurumin has intersected multiple pegmatites with indications of lithium after RC drilling at the company’s Mt Palmer gold project in Western Australia. 

Anomalous lithium and pathfinder elements were uncovered in the first-pass drilling, with up to 370 parts per million lithium detected across several samples in Aurumin’s 12-hole program.

A pegmatite is a rock with large crystals and is highly sought for the rock’s potential to contain lithium.

The program targeted lithium-bearing pegmatites at the project’s Vickers Find South prospect that aligned with geochemical soil anomalism detected by Aurumin earlier this year.

The 12 holes were drilled along three north-south lines with pegmatites intercepted throughout.

With the current lag times in receiving the multi-element results from the laboratory, a preliminary assessment of the fertility of the pegmatites was done using a desktop XRF on selected samples.

The XRF results returned anomalous levels of pathfinder elements commonly used for targeting lithium mineralisation, including up to 105ppm tantalum, 3612ppm rubidium and 79ppm niobium.

The analysis has also highlighted targets for future exploration to the south and potentially below and down-dip from current drilling with follow-up work being planned.

The depth of the first pass RC work was constrained because of water containment problems and ground conditions in some holes. Aurumin is considering extending some of the holes with diamond core tails in the next round of drilling.

Aurumin Managing Director, Brad Valiukas said: “For a first pass, we are encouraged to have intersected multiple pegmatite units with an indication of fertility for lithium. The pegmatites are fractionated, and we are developing the vectors to hone in further. We have other promising target areas untested with drilling pending as well as targets at depth.”

Geological logging showed a unique variation in the minerals encountered within the pegmatites, demonstrating to Aurumin a high degree of fractionation of the original granitic source material it interprets to lie immediately to the north.

In basic geological terms fractionation describes the process of a magma’s composition changing as it cools. A high degree of fractionation is a key component in the deposition of lithium within pegmatites.

The prospect is within the southern reaches of Aurumin’s Mt Palmer project and coincidently sits within the same greenstone belt that hosts the Earl Grey lithium deposit 65km to the south.

The southern deposit was discovered in 2016 by the previously ASX-listed Kidman Resources and stands at an impressive 189 million tonnes grading 1.5 per cent lithium oxide.

The proximal presence of the sizeable resource and geochemical anomalies inspired Aurumin to search for lithium, kicking off its campaign in March this year.

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