VR Resources Ltd (CVE:VRR) (OTCQB:VRRCF) (FRA:5VR) revealed Thursday that lithium and rare earth element (REE) mineralization has been discovered at its Hecla-Kilmer copper-gold project in Ontario.
A four-hole reconnaissance drill program, for 1,971 metres (m), was completed at the property late last year and now VR has integrated and interpreted all geochemical assay data and XRF scanning data from the holes, the company said. A broad interval of lithium occurred in fluorite-carbonate hydrothermal breccia with 0.045 % lithium oxide over 19.4m in one hole.
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Meanwhile, broad intersections of critical minerals, niobium-thorium-REE (rare earth elements) were uncovered in two holes, and corresponding high density profiles were confirmed in XRF scanning, said VR.
A detailed ground-based gravity survey is now underway covering around a 3.5 by 1.5 kilometre (km) area over all of the magnetic and EM targets previously outlined, the company added, in a bid to identify high-density copper sulfide or niobium – thorium - REE zones at the project.
The wholly-owned Hecla-Kilmer project comprises 224 claims in one contiguous block around 6 km by 7 km, covering 4,617 hectares. It lies 35 km southwest of VR's Ranoke property.
The company also said it had staked two additional properties totaling 89 claims based on data sets from the drill program last fall. The properties sit around 15 km to the northeast and 5 km southeast of Hecla-Kilmer, respectively.
In a statement, VR Resources CEO Dr Michael Gunning said: "Our goal at Hecla-Kilmer is to pursue the discovery potential for a new, large-scale copper-gold hydrothermal breccia mineral deposit in Canada. But the point of this news release is to confirm that the potential for discovery of a copper-gold breccia deposit at H-K is now expanded to include the discovery potential of strategic rare earth elements (REE’s) and critical battery metals such as lithium."
He added: "We have a high degree of confidence in this lithium and REE discovery because of the correlation between independent XRF and geochemical assay data, as exemplified by yttrium, terbium and thorium. To further our understanding of this discovery, VR has initiated a second round of geochemical analyses to focus on full-suite REE detection, above and beyond the trace element indicator data currently in hand."
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