Tambourah Metals accelerates Western Australian lithium exploration activities
Tambourah Metals (ASX: TMB) is accelerating its Western Australian lithium exploration program after the completion of a number of important lead-up activities.
The company has initiated an exploration program at Haystack Well after successfully wrapping up its government required Heritage survey within the Russian Jack project.
Russian Jack comprises six exploration licences totalling 600 sq km, with the Haystack Well prospect located in the project area’s southwest corner.
Haystack Well is a key follow-up target after anomalous lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) trends were identified in a previous soil geochemical program.
Soil sampling completed
To date, soil sampling programs have been completed at three locations – Haystack Well SW, Haystack Well East and Haystack Well Nth.
Historic soil sampling at Haystack Well SW was undertaken by Balx in 2017 over a 1.0 sq km area with most samples returning over 150 parts per million lithium and two samples recorded over 500 ppm lithium.
More recent field investigations have confirmed the Haystack Well SW soil sampling locations are within 20 metres of several outcropping pegmatites.
At Haystack Well East, located 200m south of the historic Twin Wells alluvial tin/tantalum prospect, soil sampling covers an area of 3.8 sq km and peaked at 186 ppm lithium.
Historic results under review
A review is currently underway into the results of a 2017 sampling program which reported multiple soil samples above 250 ppm lithium at the Haystack Well Nth soil grid.
Tambourah now plans to accelerate its activities through further detailed groundwork and a data review to progress these targets to the drill testing phase.
The project is believed to contain indicators of LCT pegmatites and extensive stacked pegmatite swarms over a 650m wide area which contain tantalum, beryl, corundum, and kunzite (lithium oxide).
Tambourah chair Rita Brooks noted there are historic lithium soil anomalies that have been identified that peak up to 589 ppm in an area of 1.5km strike length situated within a pegmatitic halo.
The anomaly is open in all directions and is located within the 10 km “goldilocks zone” from the presumed granite source. The soil anomalies equate to around 2.9km of contact strike-length, with the remaining approximately 20km to be further sampled.
Confirming drill targets
The company intends to complete mapping and close-spaced sampling over forthcoming weeks to confirm drill target locations based on the historic reports.
“We are very pleased to commence ground activities at Haystack Well,” Ms Brooks said.
“The company geologists have planned a program of mapping and sampling of the pegmatites in the three locations with Lithium values above 150 to 500 ppm lithium.”
Tambourah is also planning to fly a drone survey to highlight a number of untested pegmatites within the area.
“We hope to identify the source of the high-value lithium in soils in our current exploration program,” Ms Brooks said.
Tambourah is now awaiting assays results from a completed first pass reverse circulation drilling of pegmatites at the Shaw River and Tambourah North lithium exploration projects.
Current mapping and sampling programs at Shaw River have recorded extensive pegmatites up to 300m from the historic workings and the planned drone survey will help refine the extent of these pegmatite outcrops.
Lake Johnson licence applications
Meanwhile, Tambourah has applied for two exploration licences in the Mt Day region to develop lithium exploration projects in the emerging Lake Johnson province.
The Lake Johnson SE exploration projects are located south of the Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) and Flynn Gold (ASX: FG1) tenement holding and west of the TG Metals (ASX: TG6) exploration projects.
The company has commenced regional data compilation, with ground activities to follow the granting of the exploration licence.
Several pegmatite targets were noted in the historical data.