Exploration update at Leinster project
The licence, which was awarded to Technology Minerals’ wholly owned subsidiary, LRH Resources Limited (LRH) on 22 March 2022, will form part of the company’s Leinster property exploration block, which is operated under an exclusive option and earn-in agreement with Global Battery Metals Ltd (GBML), with no project expenditure required by the company.
Highlights
- The company has been issued a new licence PLA 1597 by the GeoScience Regulation Office of the Department for the Environment, Climate and Communications of Ireland to add to the 15 licences already held bringing the total area of tenure to 526 km2.
- Preliminary ground truthing and prospecting on PLA 1597 at two localities, Knockeen and Carriglead, have yielded high-grade spodumene pegmatite samples in float ranging up to 2.95% Li2O.
- Work programme due to commence to include detailed mapping, prospecting and deep overburden sampling at the Knockeen and Carriglead targets.
- Five previously identified target areas on the northern block are also to be targeted with follow up prospecting and sampling.
- Field exploration programmes to commence in October 2022 with a view to identifying specific areas for follow up drilling.
PLA 1597 was identified as prospective for lithium pegmatite potential by the company’s exploration consultants, Aurum Exploration Services, following detailed desktop studies which outlined two proximal areas of spodumene-bearing pegmatite, reported by previous operators in the mid 1970s as part of their exploration programmes. The lithium pegmatite boulder trains at Knockeen and Carriglead are separated by a north-south valley and form an initial area of interest covering approximately 2 km east-west and 1 km north-south. A historical exploration map and report also described a trench excavated at Knockeen as having uncovered a 1.8 m wide bedrock spodumene-bearing pegmatite vein. However, no detailed laboratory assays or geological maps of the trench were reported at that time.
LRH completed an initial one-day reconnaissance site visit to the Knockeen – Carriglead prospects, with Aurum geologists visually confirming the presence of spodumene in float and collecting six samples which were submitted for analysis to ALS laboratories, Loughrea, Co. Galway, Ireland and which returned values between 0.70% Li2O to 2.95% Li2O, Global Mining Review writes.