Charger Metals identifies lithium and niobium anomalies at Lake Johnston project

An infill soil sampling program by Charger Metals (ASX: CHR) has further delineated surface lithium anomalies at the Mt Gordon prospect within the Lake Johnston project in Western Australia.

The discovery includes new discrete anomalies defined near historic drill holes, which logged pegmatite intersections with elevated lithium values.

They lie adjacent to the Jaegermeister lithium prospect delineated by TG Metals (ASX: TG6).

Charger collected 864 samples in total, taken at 50-metre spacings on infill lines, reducing the sample line spacing to 200m.

Results from the closer-spaced samples are believed to have better defined the large lithium soil anomalies at Mt Gordon.

Increased resolution

Charger managing director Aidan Platel was pleased with the results.

“This recent phase of soil sampling at Mt Gordon has increased the resolution of the large lithium surface anomalies defined by our first phase of work and provided more accurate targets for our planned reverse circulation drill program,” he said.

“The new and more subtle anomalies defined exhibit good prospectivity, particularly the anomaly in proximity to known lithium-bearing pegmatites intersected in historical drilling.”

Drilling is expected to commence immediately after approvals are received later this quarter.

Priority target areas include the Mt Gordon prospect, strike extensions to the known high-grade spodumene mineralisation at Medcalf and a recently-discovered spodumene pegmatite trend to the south-west of Medcalf.

Niobium anomaly

Mr Platel said the program also defined a large niobium anomaly measuring 1.8 kilometres by 1.7km in the south of the tenement.

The anomaly returned results of up to 21.4 parts per million niobium and is believed to be coincident with an underlying magnetic high.

“Further work such as field mapping, sampling and potentially shallow aircore drilling will be required to determine the potential source of this large anomaly,” he said.

Farm-in agreement

The work at Lake Johnston is being carried out by Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) subsidiary Rio Tinto Exploration under a farm-in agreement secured in November.

The agreement was part of a series of corporate moves by Charger which included moving to 100% ownership of Lake Johnston by signing an agreement with Lithium Australia (ASX: LIT) to purchase a minority interest in the project for $2 million.