Castle Minerals Limited (ASX: CDT) has despatched a field crew to its Woodcutters lithium project to continue its campaign to demonstrate that the project is a credible lithium exploration camp.
The area’s credentials are bolstered by zones of anomalous lithium soils and rock chip samples and it being located in the same structural zone as the Bald Hill lithium mine, 25km north west and now to be owned by Mineral Resources Limited. It is also in the same region as the Liontown Resources owned Buldania lithium deposit, 25km to the south west.
The recent intense corporate manoeuvring by major resources groups around key projects in the region is indicative of its status and overall prospectivity for lithium.
Castle holds two granted exploration licences at Woodcutters which have a combined area of 410km2 (EL15/1846 and EL15/1847). The north-east region of these encompasses some 10km of a more obviously prospective lithium-bearing pegmatite trend.
A review commissioned by Castle of historical sampling and multi-element assay data obtained by AngloGold Ashanti (2009-2010), which was exploring specifically for gold, revealed several zones of lithium and associated LCT element (rubidium, beryllium, caesium and tin) anomalism.
We are very pleased to be sending out a field crew to continue Castle’s campaign to demonstrate that Woodcutters is a credible lithium exploration camp whose credentials are bolstered by it being located in the same structural zone as the Bald Hill lithium mine, 25km north west and shortly to be owned and operated by Mineral Resources Limited,” Managing Director, Stephen Stone, said.
“It is also in the same region as the Buldania lithium deposit owned by Liontown Resources Limited which is the subject of a takeover offer by Tier-1 lithium producer, Albemarle Australia Limited.
“We have rapidly advanced Woodcutters from an opportunistic and conceptual pick-up to a stage where we have confirmed its lithium prospectivity by delineating several zones of consistent lithium anomalism in soils along with supporting anomalous pegmatite rock chips.
What is also encouraging is that the relationship of the lithium anomalism to a nearby intrusive centre is consistent with what would be expected with a typically fractionated or zoned lithium bearing pegmatitic system.
“So, we believe we are on the right track and what we need to do now is to locate more anomalous pegmatites within the higher priority areas of soil anomalism and then extend that search out to other regions.
Soil cover makes the task more challenging but overcoming that using modern exploration tools is also the opportunity as it has hampered previous explorers.”