There’s no shortage of spodumene at Raiden’s Andover South lithium project

XRD work returns up to 29% spodumene in samples collected from Raiden’s Andover South project
Spodumene confirmed as the predominant lithium-bearing mineral, same as Azure’s standout Andover discovery next door
XRD analysis to be carried out on further samples collected from the project

Laboratory work has confirmed that extensive lithium-bearing spodumene is present at Raiden’s Andover South project – a highly encouraging result given its proximity to the outstanding Andover discovery.

The finding provides a great deal of substance to the prospectivity of the project, whose proximity to Azure Minerals’ (ASX:AZS) standout find in WA’s Pilbara region has played a big role in delivering a 360% increase in Tolga-backed Raiden Resources’s (ASX:RDN) share price.

Raiden had acquired 80% of the tenements (Azure North and South) that strategically abut Azure’s ground in June this year.

Early-stage reconnaissance in August at Andover South immediately identified outcropping pegmatites of up to 30m wide across a ~3.5-kilometre long, 600m wide pegmatite field.

Since then, mapping and sampling has defined a high-grade Li2O trend within the central part of the pegmatite field that extends over 1.5km along strike.

Field observations also found indications of spodumene crystals – a much sought after lithium mineral that can grade up to 6% lithium – in several samples collected by the company’s geologists.

High spodumene content confirmed

XRD lab analysis has now confirmed that spodumene is the dominant lithium-bearing mineral, making up to 29% of the samples collected from the initial reconnaissance program in July that had returned assays of up to 2.22% Li2O.

The samples were also found to have low levels of mica, supporting the theory that lithium mineralisation is predominantly derived from spodumene mineralisation.

This is a positive for Andover South as lithium mineralisation at Azure’s Andover discovery is also predominantly spodumene-related.

Adding further interest, the reported XRD samples were collected from the high-grade Li2O trend within the central part of the pegmatite field, which further underscores its prospectivity.

“The XRD analysis has confirmed our field interpretations and observations that spodumene mineralisation is present and driving the Li2O values in our results,” managing director Dusko Ljubojevic said.

“It is highly encouraging to see the similarities between these results and the similarities with the Azure discovery, where lithium mineralisation is also predominantly spodumene related.

“We will be analysing further samples from the entire pegmatite field to gain further understanding of grade zonation and controls on spodumene distribution.”

Work ahead

Raiden will now carry out further XRD analysis on the subsequent samples collected from the field, which had returned assays topping out at 2.73% Li2O, 2.7% Li2O and 2.59% Li2O.

Mineralogical studies will also be undertaken to understand the size and distribution of spodumene mineralisation with the company hoping to confirm the presence of coarse-grained mineralisation, which lends itself to low-cost dense medium processing at reasonably high recoveries.

This article was developed in collaboration with Raiden Resources, 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.