Everest Metals Corporation (ASX: EMC) has obtained further high-grade Rubidium-Lithium results from its Stage-2 Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling campaign at the Mt Edon LCT Project located 5km southwest of Paynes Find, in the Mid-West region of Western Australia.
EMC’s latest round of drilling results confirms the existence of a geological setting that hosts high-grade, world class Rubidium intersections coincident with increasing Lithium occurrences,” COO Simon Phillips said.
“EMC’s geological and management team will methodically continue developing its strategy to unlock a Rubidium/Lithium Resource on its ML. Planning for next stage drilling in conjunction with Mineralogical and Processing studies is now underway.”
Initially, Stage-2 drilling was designed to unlock the potential of a 600m pegmatite sitting along a northeast-southwest strike. This zone is interpreted to be a mineralised alteration zone located between the intrusive pegmatites and the mafic country rock.
10 x RC holes were drilled along this trend and all intercepted significant rubidium-lithium results.
The Stage-2 drilling programme returned lithium-rubidium grades with a total of 14 intersections with grades in excess of 1.05% lithium-rubidium (Rb2O + Li2O) of varying widths, containing the high potassium values (K2O), of up to 10%, with significant caesium (up to 535 ppm).
Significant anomalous LCT elements that occur in association with rubidium with a maximum value 0.51% Rb2O, include maximum values in individual drilling assayLi2O at 0.94%, Cs at 535 ppm, Nb at 247ppm, Ta at 278ppm and Sn at 155 ppm.
Additionally, findings from both the Stage-1 and Stage-2 drilling programs suggest that Mt Edon has the potential to be classified as a Rubidium-Lithium project.
The company now aims to focus mineralogical and geo-metallurgical studies to understand the nature of the resource as well as review various mineral processing technologies to enrich rubidium and lithium recoveries from the Mt Edon pegmatites.
