Tambourah Metals advances lithium exploration with stellar results at WA’s Shaw River
Tambourah Metals (ASX: TMB) has reported strong results from rock chip and shallow auger sampling at the Shaw River project in Western Australia.
The company reported grades of up to 3,660 parts per million lithium, 4,251ppm tin and 129ppm tantalum from 109 rock chip samples from the Old Shaw Creek and Shaw River areas near the north-western part of the tenement.
Most of the elevated lithium values are believed to be associated with biotite-bearing pegmatites.
The highest values have been biotite-rich samples associated with pegmatite margins and are reported to be widely distributed and enriched in caesium, tin and tantalum.
A program of shallow auger sampling was completed over tailings dumps related to the Old Shaw Creek alluvial tin-tantalum mining operation.
The sampling aimed to test the potential for remnant mineralisation (originally derived from pegmatites) and lithium.
It comprised 103 auger holes drilled at depths of up to 5.5 metres, with samples collected from three discrete geographic areas spanning 1 kilometre along the drainage channel.
Assays reported modest values including 122ppm lithium, 41.6ppm tin and 62ppm tantalum.
Dump samples are mainly comprised of gangue (material not related to minerals of economic interest) and tin-tantalum derived from cassiterite and tantalite minerals resistant to acid digest analytical methods.
Selected samples will be re-submitted for fusion analysis to check the acid digest results.
Reverse circulation drilling
Localised reverse circulation drilling was carried out below historic alluvial workings at Old Shaw Creek, with 13 holes completed to a maximum depth of 132m for a total of 1,260m.
Drilling targeted a basement source for the alluvial deposits and intersected granite intruded by numerous pegmatite veins and dykes.
While no significant results were reported, consistently elevated background lithium-caesium-tantalum elements evident in the assay data are believed to indicate a fertile, fractionated granite as a potential source for pegmatite-hosted mineralisation.
Shaw River acquisition
The Shaw River tenement was acquired from Minrex Resources in July and contains the historic Shaw River tin field, which has been mined extensively for alluvial deposits.
The tenement lies on the southern margin of the Cooglegong Monzogranite and is part of the regionally-important Split Rocks supersuite associated with major pegmatite-hosted lithium deposits in the Pilbara.