Venus Metals begins drilling at Henderson where high-grade lithium was returned in rock chips
Rock chip sampling at Venus Metals’ Henderson project returned up to 5.8% lithium.
Venus Metals (ASX: VMC) has kicked-off a phase two reverse circulation drilling program at its Henderson project where high-grade lithium was uncovered in rock chips.
Phase two drilling will test the lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites at the project that were identified from mapping and sampling, with a focus on the Emerald SE prospect where rock chips returned 3.6% lithium and 5.8% lithium.
The company revealed last month it had received assays for 89 samples collected across the project.
Of these, 29 had grades exceeding 100 parts per million lithium.
Mt Ida lithium and gold project
Henderson is located 50km northwest of Menzies in Western Australia’s eastern goldfields and in an emerging lithium province following a spodumene-rich discovery 15km away near Red Dirt Metals’ (ASX: RDT) Mt Ida project.
Red Dirt has been drilling lithium targets at Mt Ida, with recent assays of 31.9m at 1.01% lithium from 367m, including 8m at 1.9% lithium from 378m; and 26.3m at 1.1% lithium from 299.9m, including 3.5m at 2.4% lithium from 300m at the Sister Sam pegmatite.
A diamond hole at the Timoni pegmatite hit 5.2m at 2.42% lithium from 275.6m.
The company has four rigs on site completing a 60,000m program, with the aim of building a resource.
Drilling for gold
Drilling at Henderson will also test gold anomalies, which have been identified at Emerald South and Henderson Bore prospects.
A phase one aircore program in September last year returned 7m at 1.13 grams per tonne gold at the Emerald South prospect.
Other intercepts from the aircore program were 1m at 4.57g/t gold from 49m; and 2m at 2.2g/t gold from 19m, including 1m at 4.09g/t gold from 19m.
The project also hosts historical workings where sampling uncovered 77.2g/t gold and 2.4g/t gold.
Five exploration licences covering 800 square kilometres make up the Henderson project, with Venus owning 90% of the asset and an unnamed prospecting holding the other 10%.