Corazon Mining Ltd (ASX:CZN) has unearthed more high-grade lithium during rock chip sampling at its Miriam Nickel Sulphide Project in Western Australia.
Late last year, the explorer set out to sample a newly discovered spodumene-bearing pegmatite that showed lithium potential, using Raman Spectroscopy to identify the pegmatite.
Promisingly, laboratory analysis has confirmed the presence of lithium and validated the company’s initial findings, including high-grade values of between 1.01% and 1.85% lithium.
In fact, early visual analysis indicates that some of the rock samples have an estimated spodumene content up to around 30%.
Next steps
Ultimately, Corazon believes the pegmatite samples represent a very small part of the intrusive units that appear to strike north-south and can be traced via indications within the soil profile for at least 10 metres.
The true dimensions of the pegmatites, or the representativeness of these outcrops for the entire pegmatite, cannot be determined without drilling.
As such, once the Miriam leases are granted, Corazon plans to hit the ground running with more detailed exploration, designed to confirm the extent of lithium mineralisation within the project boundaries.
This work will coincide with an aggressive nickel sulphide exploration program over Miriam’s flagship deposit, while shallow drilling is on the cards to test unweathered pegmatites.
About Miriam
The Miriam Project is roughly 10 kilometres south-southwest of Coolgardie on a trend of ultramafics best identified by the Miriam and Nepean nickel deposits.
Corazon has acquired sole rights to the project, which covers five prospecting licence applications currently under application.
In 1969, Anaconda Australia Limited discovered the Miriam Deposit and conducted most of the known nickel exploration during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
This work defined the deposit’s core over a strike of about 150 metres and to a depth of at least 150 metres below surface.
In places, subsequent drilling extended the drilled depth to about 300 metres below surface.
The initial defining drill intercepts for the Miriam Deposit include:
- 9.6 metres at 5.60% nickel;
- 12.5 metres at 0.56%;
- 3.2 metres at 2.59%;
- 0.9 metres at 5.57%; and
- 6.1 metres at 0.90%.
