Pan Asia Metals Ltd (ASX:PAM) has intersected relatively wide pegmatite dyke swarms in the first two diamond drill holes at Reung Kiet prospect, which forms part of the Reung Kiet Lithium Project (RKLP) in southern Thailand with a further six holes planned.
The intersections followed an earlier trenching program that returned lithium grades of up to 1.99%.
Pegmatite dyke swarms were intersected in both holes, over substantial widths with the pegmatite containing abundant lepidolite along with quartz and feldspar.
The pegmatite is shallow dipping, extends to plus 100 metres down dip from surface and remains open while weathering extends to about 40 metres below surface.
Core is being logged, in preparation for sampling and dispatch for analysis.
"Very pleased"
Managing director Paul Lock said: “We are very pleased with these first two holes.
“The dyke swarms intersected are relatively wide and are shown to extend at shallow dip from surface where previous trenching work identified the lepidolite rich pegmatite dyke swarm with channel assays up to 1.99% lithium.
“The shallow dip and depth of weathering also offers benefits regarding potential future mining and processing options.
“Previous metallurgical test-work indicates that we can recover lepidolite from the weathered pegmatites and also potentially valuable by-products such as kaolin and quartz.”
Follows BIT drilling
The drilling at RK prospect follows immediately after six holes at the Bang I Tum (BIT) prospect with all of these intersecting pegmatite dyke swarms over substantial widths.
Two HQ3 diameter diamond holes were drilled at RK prospect for a total of 205 metres testing for depth extensions to an extensive lepidolite-rich pegmatite dyke swarm identified at surface by previous work conducted by the company which included mapping, trenching and rock chip sampling.
The target being drilled occurs to the southwest along strike from the old open cut tin mine and the whole trend has a combined strike length of about 1-kilometre.
Hole RKDD006
The two holes, RKDD006 and 007, both intersected an extensive swarm of pegmatite, stringers, veins and dykes that intrude into fine-grained metasediments.
These pegmatites are immediately down dip of similar pegmatite dyke swarm that have been identified at surface and are interpreted to be dipping about 20-30 degrees to the southeast in line with exposures observed in trenching and in an old mine excavation at the southern end of the trend.
RKDD006 was drilled to test for down dip extensions of a lepidolite-rich pegmatite swarm identified in previous trenching and intersected a lepidolite-rich dyke and vein swarm with a composite downhole width of around 24 metres from 5.8 metres to 101.2 metres.
The central part of the swarm from 24.15 metres to 80.5 metres intersected numerous lepidolite-rich pegmatites ranging from 0.2 to 2.45 metres, with a composite width of 18.35 metres.
Hole RKDD006 was drilled on a section in between Trenches 8 and 9 that intersected numerous lepidolite rich pegmatite dykes and veins.
Sampling of the pegmatites in these trenches showed that from the 52 channel samples collected, 50 samples were >0.5% lithium and returned an average grade of 1.41% lithium, with a maximum value of 1.99% lithium.
Hole RKDD007
RKDD007 was drilled around 100 metres southwest along strike from RKDD006, to a depth of 95 metres.
From 14.1 metres to 88.25 metres the total composite width of the pegmatite intersected was 19.1 metres.
In the central portion of this zone from 17.75 metres to 67.4 metres the composite downhole width of the pegmatite was 15.5 metres.
The pegmatites contain abundant lepidolite with the hole being drilled almost on the same section as Trench 4.
Around 11 samples of pegmatite dyke collected in the trench returned average values of 1.29% lithium ranging between 0.52% to a maximum of 1.81% lithium.
Looking ahead
PAM considers the initial results from the drilling at RK as highly encouraging.
Drilling continues at the prospect and a further six holes are planned with additional drilling contingent upon the success of these holes.
Further success may lead to the delineation of a drill supported exploration target and/or a mineral resource defined in accordance with the JORC Code (2012).