Chariot Corporation is due to kick-start exploration activities at its Black Mountain hard rock lithium project in the US with the onset of the northern summer.
The company has engaged ERM Australia Consultants and ERM Sustainable Mining Services to design the program, which is expected to employ a man-portable drill rig for up to 4,000 metres of diamond core drilling.
ERM has substantial experience with hard rock lithium deposits and has been associated with large hard rock lithium discoveries in Western Australia and Africa.
Cost minimisation
The man-portable rig will aim to minimise costs and keep the area of disturbance within the five-acre limit under an existing notice of intent.
Drilling will test the down-dip extension of outcropping spodumene-bearing pegmatite dikes as interpreted from the 3D inversion modelling of ground magnetics reprocessed in April.
Activities will then transition to a truck-mounted set-up that will enable drill pads to be placed over a larger area of disturbance, giving the company access across the full 26.85 square kilometres of the Black Mountain claims.
K-feldspar testing
Extensive K-feldspar testing along with rock chip and soil sampling will be conducted prior to drilling to further refine pegmatite targets interpreted to be underlying outcropping dikes to the north and east of the area drilled last season.
The first three holes of that program contained spodumene-hosted mineralisation with grades of up to 1.12% lithium oxide in intersections of up to 15.42m and have been interpreted to represent the outer branches of a potentially larger unexposed pegmatite system.
K-feldspar testing is a surface exploration method used to identify and vector highly fractionated lithium-caesium-tantalite (LCT) pegmatite systems.
It is expected to reliably, rapidly and cost-effectively identify the most prospective targets across Black Mountain’s large surface area, which includes hundreds of individual outcropping pegmatites.
K-feldspar testing has been previously used by other lithium companies under the guidance of ERM.
Copper Mountain drilling
Chariot’s summer exploration program will incorporate drilling at the nearby Copper Mountain project and five other LCT pegmatite projects in Wyoming.
At Copper Mountain, the company will target the most highly fractionated outcropping pegmatite dikes for follow-up detailed mapping and sampling with the aim of defining potential targets for drill testing.
Geologists have mapped large swarms consisting of several hundred dikes, some of which are potentially LCT pegmatites.
Many are believed to be over 50m in apparent width and at least 1km in strike length.
Chariot will also initiate surface exploration over the neighbouring South Pass, Tin Cup, Barlow Gap, Pathfinder and JC projects.
