Anson Resources Ltd (ASX:ASN) has increased the Paradox Brine Project’s footprint by 20% to 114 square kilometres from 18.40 square kilometres.
It has staked an additional 228 placer claims, which are highly prospective for lithium-rich brines and abut Anson’s Cane Creek claims at its Paradox Project in Utah.
This ground falls within the Area of Influence (AOI) of the existing indicated and inferred resource estimates,
About 45% of the area is to be classified as inferred resource in an upgraded resource model and Anson plans to conduct a 2-well re-entry program to convert the inferred resource/Exploration Target to a combined indicated and inferred resource.
Additional claims
The additional claims contain an area of 8.5 square kilometres within the AOI and will be added to the updated total JORC resource estimate being completed.
These newly pegged claims are west of the Sunburst and Mineral Canyon wells, which are under application with the Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for re-entry and sampling. They will also be included in any revised indicated and inferred JORC resource estimates should the re-entry program be successful.
Environmental assessment study
As approvals for the re-entry program progress, the BLM requested the preparation of an Environmental Assessment (EA) study over the area that is expected to be impacted by the planned exploration program.
The EA is expected to be completed and submitted soon.
Samples of brine to be collected from these wells, once BLM’s approval has been finalised, will be tested for several minerals including lithium, bromine, Iodine and boron concentrations.
The wells are about 1 kilometre from historic lithium-rich assayed brines.
Access to these areas is provided by existing roads that pass through the project claims, enabling an exploration program to commence once government approvals have been granted as the environmental and cultural surveys have already completed.
Exploration target
In addition to the pending mineral resource estimates, an exploration target of a further 365-700 million tonnes of brine grading in the range of 50 mg/L to 300 mg/L lithium and 2,000 mg/L to 4,000 mg/L bromine has been estimated for Clastic Zones 17, 19, 29, 31 and 33.
This conceptual exploration target occurs within the project’s placer claims totalling 9,566 hectares.
Further resource potential
The mineral resource could be further increased by re-entering historic holes in the western and southern areas of the project, which is only classified as an exploration target due to the lack of data to date.
This would result in a significant increase in the block model tonnages and grades for the additional Clastic Zones as there has been no recorded assays in those locations.
Calculations of this increase are being undertaken and will be announced when complete.