American Salars Lithium’s new Leduc East project in Quebec has historical feldspar and mica production along with mapped pegmatites. Pic: Getty Images
American Salars locks in Quebec lithium project with known pegmatite occurences
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- American Salars Lithium acquiring Leduc East project in Quebec that has historical feldspar and mica production
- Project hosts 35 mapped pegmatites and 13 former feldspar and mica mines
- Locations for immediate follow up drilling have already been identified for upcoming exploration.
Special Report: American Salars Lithium is moving quickly to bulk up its lithium portfolio with the acquisition of the promising Leduc East lithium pegmatite project in Quebec.
It follows on the heels of the company’s move earlier this week to acquire the Jaguaribe project in Brazil, which contains recent high grade rock samples of up to 3.72% Li2O.
Leduc East consists of 101 mineral claims covering 61km2 that sits about 35km north of Gatineau with surrounding infrastructure and accessibility for exploration.
It is also about 275km southwest of Bécancour’s Battery Metal Park and Lithium downstream concentrator and foundry, and 300km southeast of Sayona Mining’s NAL lithium mine, spodumene concentrator and planned foundry.
The project covers part of an extensive belt of granitic and gneissic rocks that host pegmatitic mineralogy, with over 35 mapped pegmatites and covering 15 historical pegmatite-borne felspar showings, 13 of which are former feldspar and mica mines that operated from the early 1900s to the 1940s.
While assaying for lithium has never been carried out at the project, mica – a possible source of lithium – is known to be present in the historical mines.
Adding further interest, five of the mines produced tourmaline, which is a key indicator mineral for lithium.
With Leduc East being just 4.5km east of the historical Mine Leduc, which covers a small lithium-bearing body, there’s strong support for lithium enrichment at the project.
“The opportunity to acquire this portfolio of past producing mines with thirty-five mapped pegmatites that were never assayed for lithium, is an exciting proposition at these valuations,” American Salars Lithium (CSE:USLI) chief executive officer Nick Horsley said.
“We have never been more optimistic about lithium’s future and American Salars is well positioned to capitalise on its growing demand.
“With highly prospective projects throughout Quebec, Nevada, Brazil and Argentina we are strategically located in some of the premier jurisdictions throughout North and South America.”
Existing projects
Besides its recent acquisitions, ASL’s lithium portfolio includes the Candela 2 and Pocitos 1 lithium brine projects in Argentina.
Pocitos 1 has a non-JORC resource of 760,000t lithium carbonate equivalent that is shared with the neighbouring Pocitos 2 project that is not held by the company.
All drilling to date has been on the company’s acreage.
The project is ~10km from the township of Pocitos where there is gas, electricity, and accommodation.
Collective exploration since 2017 totals over US$2m and includes surface sampling, trenching, TEM and MT geophysics and the drilling of three wells that returned outstanding brine flow results.
Locations for immediate follow up drilling have already been identified for upcoming exploration based on the most recent MT survey.
This article was developed in collaboration with American Salars Lithium, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
