Core Lithium Ltd (ASX:CXO) has kicked off a reverse circulation (RC) drilling campaign of more than 40,000 metres of greenfields and brownfields target areas at its Finniss Lithium Project near Darwin, including mobilising a large RC rig to test deeper targets.
The program is aimed at following up on prospects from the 2021 drilling campaign including at Bilatos, Penfolds, Centurion and Talmina West, as well as many new conceptual targets.
Together with the previously announced diamond drilling at BP33, Core hopes to define new prospects and mineral resources for the project this year.
“We have a full exploration schedule focused on growing our life of mine to support lithium production from northern Australia,” Core chief executive officer Gareth Manderson said in an update to investors.
Anningie-Barrow Creek project
Core is planning to recommence work at the project later this year after six of 13 recent rock samples from the Bismark Prospect located within the Anningie Tin Field returned greater than 1% Li2O, with a maximum of 4.78% Li2O, with spodumene occurring at the surface.
Core has a strong lease position covering roughly 2,805 square kilometres in the Barrow Creek Pegmatite Field in the New Territories. The project has a long history of tin and tantalum production around Barrow Creek and Anningie, and is well situated alongside the railway that links to the Darwin Port.
Spodumene bearing pegmatite assaying 4.78% Li2O at Bismark
Finniss gold discovery
Gold-focused activities completed since the start of 2021 have included increasing the number of samples in the Finniss Project’s geochemical database by over 25,600 through the sampling of new sites.
Core’s exploration has delineated more than 40 surficial gold geochemical anomalies on the project tenements. Five have been drilled so far, comprising 429 rotary air blast (RAB) holes totalling 7,703 metres, 21 RC holes totalling 2,353 metres and three diamond holes totalling 722.7 metres.
Strongly anomalous gold is seen at shallow depths in all five of the targets drill tested, including at Golden Boulder where an auriferous, steeply east dipping quartz lode has been defined in drilling.
Significant regions of the tenements remain to be geochemically sampled and the discovery of anomalies additional to those already delineated is a possibility.
Gold mineralisation at Finniss is of a style closely comparable with that seen at the Pine Creek Orogen, a gold district with past production and current reserves totalling in excess of 18 million ounces.
Golden Boulder cross section showing Au contours, quartz vein boundary, and proposed RC hole
Funding nod
Core has secured approval for two separate applications for co-funding of $100,000 each in Round 15 of the Northern Territory Geophysics and Drilling Collaborations program.
The approved programs are for the Ambient Noise Tomography survey, which is now planned at the Shoobridge Lithium Project near Pine Creek NT, with work expected to commence in September 2022; and a single deep diamond drill hole targeting the down plunge extension approximately 450 metres below surface at the Sandras Lithium Deposit.