Lithium sniffs for Kairos near Kalgoorlie

West Australian-based explorer Kairos Minerals has eked out an extensive lithium-in-soil anomaly at its Roe Hills project some 120km east of Kalgoorlie. With the white metal running red hot the company cast its eye back over the results of a 2020 soil sampling program and discovered the intriguing lithium anomaly that stretches over 2.7km.

Interestingly, the anomaly lies only 10km south of Breaker Resources’ Manna lithium discovery that is now 80 per cent owned by Global Lithium. Global Lithium handed over a cool $33 million in the recent deal to become the major owner and operator of the emerging Manna discovery.

Breaker stumbled across the spodumene-rich pegmatites while conducting field reconnaissance activities in its hunt for gold at the neighbouring Lake Roe gold project. An auger soil geochemistry program quickly ensued defining a lithium-rich footprint over an area of 3.4km by 1km.

Follow up drilling by Breaker confirmed a swarm of pegmatites up to 200 metres wide extending over 700m strike with grades peaking at a serious 1.8 per cent lithium oxide.

Originally a total of 1,311 soil samples were collected at Roe Hills and sent to the laboratory for gold and multi-element analysis and a gold-in-soil anomaly was detected. Follow up RC drilling subsequently threw up several significant gold intercepts including 4m returning 1.63 grams per tonne gold from 48m.

However, scant interest was given at the time to the possibility of further anomalous elements in the multi-element analysis.

Enter the lithium boom. As the world raced to embrace all things lithium, the price of the lithium-rich raw material known as spodumene skyrocketed nearly 480 per cent over the last 12 months according to figures released from the Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

The accelerating price of lithium offers solid incentive for exploration companies to take a second look for lithium at their projects – a message obviously not lost on Kairos. The discovery of a significant spodumene-rich lithium deposit on the neighbouring tenement at Manna is likely another.

Kairos says in reviewing the multi-element geochemistry it highlighted a coherent lithium corridor over an area spanning 2.7km by 0.4km. The company says elevated values for rubidium, beryllium, tin, caesium and tungsten were also returned, indicating a similar geological setting to the nearby Manna lithium deposit.

Kairos Minerals Executive Chairman, Terry Topping said: “This is an exciting discovery, which was made following a detailed review of the extensive geochemical sampling program completed in 2020. The significance of this extending north-east trending anomaly has been further enhanced by the discovery of the Manna lithium prospect, located 10km to the north, by Breaker Resources.”

“Breaker has recently transacted on this exciting emerging discovery in a deal with Global Lithium Resources, which has acquired an 80% interest in the tenements.”

Kairos says in its review on all existing data over its Roe Hills tenure it has stumped up a further eight additional targets of interest. Field-checking and rock chip sampling has already commenced ahead of a planned air-core drilling program.

As Kairos continues to actively explore its Pilbara and Goldfield’s gold targets, a significant lithium-discovery in a known pegmatite-bearing field may throw up another opportunity for it and pique the interest of market pundits at a time of skyrocketing global interest in lithium projects and the electric vehicle juggernaut.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au