Doesn’t look like much to the untrained eye, but it’s a fantastic sight for lithium explorer Riversgold. Pic via Getty Images.
Riversgold hits spodumene rich pegmatites in drilling at Pilbara lithium ground
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Lithium explorer Riversgold has struck the white gold of spodumene in drilling samples from its Tambourah project in WA’s Pilbara, striking multiple ‘spodumene rich widths’ in its 2022 program.
Assays have been returned for a program last year which involved the drilling of 21 reverse circulation holes for 2661m at the Bengal prospect.
Twenty of those holes struck a cumulative total of 143m of interpreted lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatite, with two intercepts from a 14m wide pegmatite in TMBC003 assaying more than 1% Li2O.
That strike included 0.9% Li2O over 4m from 17m downhole at a 0.5% cutoff, demonstrating the potential to identify spodumene and lepidolite rich lithium mineralisation at Tambourah.
Those encouraging results for Riversgold (ASX:RGL) will move exploration forward at the project, along with an 1800 sample geochemical program that has been completed and extended to the east of Bengal into ultramafic greenstones.
Mineralised pegmatites were uncovered at depth in all 16 drill holes targeted via geological mapping and observation of lepidolite mineralisation at surface.
Meanwhile four of the five holes where deep ground penetrating radar was used to locate blind pegmatites with no surface expression successfully intersected them with drilling down to 80m.
New exploration program this month
Off the back of those successes Riversgold has extended its DGPR coverage to the east of Bengal.
Results from recent field programs are expected in the next few weeks and will form the basis for a new drilling and exploration program scheduled to start in March 2023.
The package controlled by Riversgold is deep in lithium’s elephant country, surrounded by two of the world’s largest deposits in Pilbara Minerals’ Pilgangoora and Mineral Resources’ Wodgina mine.
“These drill results are the culmination of our 2022 exploration program at Tambourah and represent a significant step forward to unlocking the lithium potential of our Pilbara tenement package, located close to the globally significant Pilgangoora and Wodgina deposits,” Riversgold CEO Julian Ford said.
“We have only really started our exploration efforts at Tambourah, and receiving the confirmation that we have pegmatites up to 14 metres in width with spodumene lithium mineralisation is critical to us now being able to move the Project forward.”
Importantly microline feldspar was visible in the majority of the pegmatite intercepts at Bengal. This is normally characteristic of the proximal zone of a mineralisation, and the optimal mineralised zone is generally further away from the source granite.
That has informed the decision to explore to the east of the Bengal drilling.
“We believe that our 2022 drilling was potentially too close to the granitic source and drilling slightly further to the east, targeting major dilation zones, will provide the consistent widths of mineralisation we are after,” Ford said.
“We expect to publish the results of our extensive geochemical and geophysical results in coming weeks, which we will use to develop our drill targets for 2023.”
Results from 4000 geochemical samples are expected over the next couple weeks.
This article was developed in collaboration with Riversgold, 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.
