Auroch has put together plans for a maiden 1,000m drill programme just three months after picking up the strategically-positioned Nevada Lithium Project.

It follows the company’s senior management conducting a site visit in late June/early July to assess the geology of key prospect areas, meeting with key stakeholders and completing updated mapping of prospect areas after a review of historical data confirmed the prospectivity for significant lithium mineralisation.

Auroch Minerals (ASX:AOU) had acquired the 80% stake in the project in June on the strengths of being in the same geological formation as other large lithium deposits in the region, such as the nearby TLC Lithium Project.

NLP comprises the Traction, San Antone, Heller and Lone Mountain prospect areas covering 65km2 close to the mining town of Tonopah in the mining-friendly counties of Nye and Esmeralda.

“We are pleased with the progress we have made at our Nevada Lithium Project (NLP),” managing director Aidan Platel said.

“Having an experienced local team is critical to the success of the project, and since establishing our team they have been very busy reviewing all historic data and completing detailed field mapping of our key prospect areas, as we work towards a maiden drill programme.

“After reviewing this work to-date and seeing the geology first-hand, we are very excited by the potential of the NLP to host significant lithium mineralisation, especially when looking at the success of our neighbours in the region, most notably American Lithium Corporation’s large TLC Lithium deposit which is very close to our project area.”

Drill programme

The initial 1,000m drill programme will selectively test stratigraphic targets within the project area.

Drill holes are located in areas of mapped Siebert Formation, the same geological formation which hosts TLC.

Permitting has started and approvals are expected within the next four to six weeks while the company is in the process of awarding the drilling contract.

South Australian rare earths

Auroch is also poised to start soil sampling at the Kanyaka and Hawker rare earth element prospects at its Arden project in South Australia to identify zones of anomalous REE’s over suspected near surface diapirs and breccias. These zones will be tested with follow-up drilling.

Hawker is about 25km west of Taruga Minerals’ Morgan’s Creek prospect where shallow ionic adsorption clay-hosted REE mineralisation was identified earlier this year by drilling that returned up to 27m at 1,050 parts per million total rare earth oxides.

Kanyaka is defined by several historical copper oxide workings located north of the town of Quorn.

A review of the company’s rock chip sampling of historical trenches and shallow workings conducted in 2018 returned several samples of anomalous REE mineralisation, including one sample as high as 1330.59ppm TREO.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with Auroch Minerals, 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.

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