White Cliff Minerals believes its Lake Johnston South project is highly-prospective for spodumene-bearing pegmatites following a review into the operation west of Norseman in Western Australia’s Goldfields region.
Lake Johnston South consists of 13 exploration licenses totalling 1874 square kilometres adjacent to and along strike from recent large-scale discoveries of spodumene-bearing pegmatites by Charger Metals and TG Metals. Based on high-resolution magnetic data sourced from the State Government, the greenstone and magnetic trends appear to continue for more than 30 linear kilometres into White Cliff’s project area.
Charger and Rio Tinto Exploration’s Lake Johnston joint venture today revealed samples of up to 4.2 per cent lithium oxide. Three samples were collected from across the outcrop, with all of them returning high-grade lithium results of 4.2 per cent, 3.7 per cent and 3.5 per cent lithium oxide, respectively.
White Cliff says it is not aware of any lithium exploration undertaken on its Lake Johnston South project area by previous operators, opening up the potential for a similar greenfield discovery along the spodumene-bearing corridor across its licence holding. A reconnaissance campaign will include mapping and sampling at the site, with a program of work to be submitted for future drilling that is scheduled for early next year.
White Cliff Minerals chairman Roderick McIllree said: “I am delighted to inform existing and incoming shareholders that while we continue to deliver on our stated copper objectives in Canada, we have uncovered a stunning lithium prospect in our portfolio in what is now proven as a new shallow high grade lithium province.”
The company has built a significant WA portfolio and recently added a dozen projects prospective for rare earths and iron-oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) deposits into its fold. The 12 operations cover 2562 square kilometres – from Jerramungup in the State’s Great Southern region, to Wanna Lakes near the South Australian border and up to the Three Rivers-Ashton Hills projects east of Carnarvon and south of Newman.
The acquisitions add to its established rare earths and lithium sites at the Hines Hill, Diemals and Lake Tay projects.
Earlier this month, the company also secured a swathe of ground in the Canadian province of Nunavut after an agreement with a private party for 61 mineral claims covering 80,500 hectares at Coppermine River.
Management says exploration has validated dozens of prospective occurrences of copper and silver mineralisation. It includes one rock-chip sample from the Halo prospect returning outstanding assays of 30.24 per cent copper and 34 grams per tonne silver, while a second showed 30.25 per cent copper and 43g/t silver.
Rock-chip samples from the Cu-Tar prospect delivered even higher results, with one assay returning 35.54 per cent copper and 17g/t silver. The company’s Don target has returned multiple samples greater than 40 per cent copper with another showing 30.7 per cent copper and more than 22g/t silver.
While White Cliff is committed to making a decent fist of exploring its new ground in the mineral hotspot that is Canada, it seems to have also found good reason not to ignore what it already has on home shores.
And it might also present as a tasty Christmas treat for any other party looking to jump into the market-shifting lithium space.
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By Michael Philipps
