Recharge Metals steps on the gas with start of Express lithium LiDAR survey

Recharge Metals (ASX: REC) is introducing state-of-the-art Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) technology to help further uncover the potential of its Express lithium project in the prolific James Bay Region of Québec, Canada.

LiDAR and high-resolution aerial imagery survey technology has proven to be a game-changer in a bid to uncover hidden treasures in the archaeology world and is gaining increasing use by miners hunting for new discoveries.

Recharge’s managing director, Felicity Repacholi-Muir, said the company is confident the soon to commence Express survey will provide the company with a wealth of new information from a project they acquired earlier this year.

“The LiDAR survey is anticipated to contribute to our knowledge of the Express lithium project, with the aim of revealing unknown pegmatite targets for evaluation and validating those that we have already identified,” she said.

“These will be explored in tandem with our four existing high priority target areas at Express. While our exploration progress has been delayed by the significant forest fires, we are encouraged by the gradual re-opening of the James Bay region for exploration. We eagerly await the return of safe working conditions at both our Express and Wapistan lithium projects so that we can get boots on the ground.”

LiDAR and high-resolution aerial imagery survey

Recharge’s high-resolution LiDAR survey has been designed to uncover undiscovered or hidden pegmatites beneath vegetation.

Recharge’s survey is designed to deliver a digital elevation model (DEM) on a 1m by 1m grid scale with 20cm vertical resolution and an overlying image with less than 20cm pixel resolution.

The LiDAR technology is perfect for this type of survey in a locality such as Express as it produces a high-resolution topographical image of the surface, allowing an accurate landform analysis to be performed, allowing detailed desktop exploration of outcropping pegmatites and prospective geological features.

The technique has already proven to be successful in the James Bay region in its use by other explorers and producers.

Express lithium project

The Express lithium project covers a significant project area of 73.5 sq. km in the heart of the James Bay Region and is strategically located approximately 12km southeast of Allkem’s (ASX: AKE) James Bay Deposit, 15km northeast of Cygnus Metals’ (ASX: CY5) Pontax lithium project, and between Brunswick Exploration’s Anatacau West and Anatacau Main projects.

Recharge has been boosted by news of Brunswick Exploration’s recently announced drill intercepts of up to 26.5m at 1.51% lithium oxide at the Anatacau West project and the discovery of the Anais pegmatite outcrop within their Anatacau Main project.

The company’s consultants have previously identified four high priority targets of interpreted outcrop as well as the largest concentration of interpreted pegmatite targets. Recharge says these have been ranked to have the greatest potential to host lithium-bearing pegmatites.

Waiting for fires to abate

The recent spate of wild fires in the James Bay region has restricted Recharge’s access to the Express lithium project, however, the company has all the necessary contracts in place for its northern summer field season program to commence once safe working conditions allow.

Once that happens, the plan is for Dahrouge Geological to complete on-ground exploration, including detailed geological mapping and sampling of the priority target areas to confirm the presence and geochemistry of the lithologies present.

This will be followed by diamond drilling at key lithium targets identified from the mapping and geochemical sampling.