Lithium clay developer Hawkstone Mining continues its impressive run at the flagship Big Sandy project in the US, with the latest batch of drilling assays outlining further high grade results.
Intersections included 52 metres grading 2,042 parts per million, or “ppm”, lithium from 14m down-hole, which incorporated a higher-grade zone of 9m @ 2,748ppm lithium from 42m.
The Phase 2 drilling campaign at the Northern Mineralised Zone is now nearly completed and the company has defined extensions of the primary lithium clay ore system over at least 800 metres, with the deposit still open on three sides.
Hawkstone Managing Director Paul Lloyd said: “Hawkstone’s Big Sandy project has continued to deliver exceptional results as the company has successfully progressed through the 37-hole diamond drill program. High grade intercepts have continued, and the assay results from these latest four diamond drill holes further demonstrate the significant potential of the Big Sandy project.”
Drill results from both phases of work at Big Sandy are now being compiled and will be used to generate a 3D deposit model ahead of a maiden mineral resource estimate for the project later this year, which should make for interesting reading.
Big Sandy is located within the US’ “battery mineral corridor” in western Arizona, which includes Tesla Motors’ Gigafactory 1, a lithium-ion battery and EV subassembly factory up the road near Reno in Nevada state.
The project area contains an 11km long lithium-rich clay horizon with simple geology and encouraging preliminary metallurgical test work recoveries.
The deposits have an imposing size and Hawkstone recently generated an Exploration Target for the project, saying it 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, to a depth of 90m from the surface.
