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Alto Metals prepares to drill deeper gold at Sandstone project, lithium targets identified

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By Imelda Cotton - 
Alto Metals ASX AME drill potential lithium targets Sandstone gold project Indomitable
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Alto Metals (ASX: AME) is preparing for deeper reverse circulation drilling at the Indomitable Camp target within the Sandstone gold project in Western Australia and explore several lithium targets at the project.

Drilling is expected to complement recent shallow gold results of 16 metres at 13.1 grams per tonne gold from 19m including 3m at 62.2g/t from 29m; 16m at 7.2g/t gold from 65m including 4m at 24.2g/t from 74m; and 25m at 7.5g/t gold from 41m including 6m at 22.3g/t from 56m.

The company said field work had commenced, identifying outcropping pegmatites spatially coincident to several of the targets located on the eastern flank of the project area where Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) recently secured contiguous tenure.

Planning is underway for an infill soil geochemistry program and assays are currently pending for selected rock chip samples.

No previous lithium exploration work has been undertaken at Sandstone and the results of initial reconnaissance and targeting work have been considered “encouraging”.

Lithium targeting work

Alto has engaged CSA Global and Terra Resources to support its ongoing lithium targeting work.

Terra has conducted a remote sensing study across the larger-scale project area to identify potential lithium pegmatites.

The study concentrated on a greenstone granite contact on the eastern side of the project.

Regional exploration

Managing director Matthew Bowles said while Alto remained focused on gold, it would continue to conduct low-cost regional exploration for lithium.

“Sandstone has never had any previous exploration focused on lithium and while we are still at an early stage, several targets have been identified, which is encouraging,” he said.

“We are now moving to implement follow-up field verification and mapping programs to further define these targets.”

Recent lithium-focused exploration in the Sandstone region has included Rio subsidiary Rio Tinto Exploration securing tenure and acquiring ground contiguous to Sandstone on the eastern border and Sensore (ASX: S3N) farming into tenure held by Gateway Mining (ASX: GML) for lithium exploration.