Lightning Minerals Ltd (ASX:L1M) has kicked off the first stage of exploration at the Caraíbas and Sidrônio lithium projects in the lithium-rich province of Minas Gerais in Brazil, with boots on the ground advancing geological mapping and sampling.
The company says a highly experienced field team with strong local intellectual property (IP) in the form of extensive geophysical data sets has been appointed to support exploration, particularly in the modelling of geophysical targeting exercises.
L1M is confident the two projects are prospective for lithium, as a recent site visit by the company’s representatives identified multiple pegmatites and regional trends within the fertile Salinas Formation, which hosts multiple lithium resources.
Dialling-in on lithium drilling targets
“Our initial reconnaissance during our site visit in June proved very positive with multiple pegmatites and areas of interest identified,” Lightning Minerals managing director Alex Biggs said.
“We really like the potential that the Lithium Valley holds for Lightning and it’s important for us to now get going on our work program.
“Since returning from Brazil we have been focusing on further building our team in Brazil and completing analysis that allows us to move into our programs with confidence and a clear plan.
“We welcome our new employees and contractors in Brazil who possess significant IP and success in finding lithium across the Lithium Valley and look forward to our success together.
“These early-stage works are crucial in allowing us to identify drill targets across the project areas and increase our IP of the region. We look forward to updating the market in due course.”
Lightning Minerals held $3.12 million in cash at the end of the last quarter, enough funding to support an aggressive exploration strategy across its new Brazilian lithium assets.
Exploration strategy
At Caraíbas, exploration will initially focus on artisanal workings which produced peak lithium rock chip grades of up to 0.53%, with strong tantalum (1,2345 parts per million or ppm), rubidium (1,175 ppm) and caesium (1,455 ppm) grades that point to lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatite mineralisation and may offer some early-stage opportunities for drill testing.
Geochemical sampling over the projects will target Salinas Formation trends, artisanal workings and areas with promising aeromagnetic signatures most likely to host pegmatite formations.
At the same time, Lightning will reprocess existing regional geophysical datasets to refine the available data and generate drilling targets ahead of high-resolution surveys, reducing the amount of follow-up survey work necessary.
The tenements sit in an area known to be very rich in lithium, host to Latin Resources’ Salinas Lithium Project, which hosts a global mineral resource estimate of 77.7 million tonnes at 1.24% lithium for 984,900 tonnes of lithium oxide or 2.346 million tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE).
The Minas Gerais state regional aeromagnetic geophysical image exhibits a coarse resolution which can be optimised with reprocessing of existing data.