Lightning Minerals Ltd (ASX:L1M) has started an extensive soil sampling program across its flagship Dundas Project in Western Australia, targeting multiple minerals including a suite of critical minerals and lithium.
A surface reconnaissance program of the project area is also being undertaken simultaneously to identify outcrops and further areas of potential mineralisation.
The company has also begun interpretation of geophysical survey data with a view to develop drilling targets as part of its discovery strategy.
Lightning started trading on the ASX last week after raising A$7 million from its IPO to advance the Dundas Project as well as Mt Jewell, Mt Bartle and Mailman Hill projects in Western Australia.
The company received strong investor interest in the IPO with institutional, S708 and retail investors applying for ~A$40 million worth of shares.
Dundas project tenements.
Former Critical Resources boss and Lightning’s chief executive officer Alex Biggs said: “It is fantastic to be starting our exploration works at Dundas immediately post our successful listing on the ASX.
“The region is highly prospective for multiple commodities including a suite of critical minerals and lithium, demonstrated by recent exploration successes by multiple companies and proven by existing Resources in the region.
“We have a number of areas of interest that we will be focusing on during our initial campaign and combined with the geophysics interpretation that is being completed we aim to generate multiple high quality drill targets.”
Dundas Project
The Dundas Project area is near Norseman in Western Australia and comprises eight tenements totalling 454 square kilometres.
Historically, Norseman and the Dundas area have experienced mining in gold and nickel although over recent years the region has become an emerging lithium and critical minerals province with multiple discoveries and significant exploration activity.
There are two project areas at Dundas:
- South/Western tenements surrounding Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR)’ Buldania/Anna lithium project, and
- North/Eastern tenements ~30km to the East of Alliance Mineral Assets’ Bald Hill lithium-tantalum mine.
Soil sampling work program
Limited historical exploration over the Dundas Project has focused predominantly on gold, nickel and PGEs.
The further assessment of these datasets together with the integration of full-suite multi-element assay results from the soil sampling campaign into Lightning’s geological framework model will be the focus for the coming months.
Sampling will initially be completed on a 400m x 400m grid spacing, with closer-spaced sampling undertaken where geological prospectivity has been modelled.
Geological thesis
The Dundas region is highly prospective for a range of critical minerals including lithium, nickel, PGEs, copper, rare earth elements and gold.
A number of recent exploration successes have led to the Dundas region emerging as a new lithium province with an evolving exploration thesis.
Figure 3 (compiled using data from the Geological Survey of Western Australia) shows granitoid source rocks with age ranges corresponding to global maxima for lithium-cesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatite development.
Figure 3: Granitic source rocks in the Dundas project area coloured by age with granite-hosted surface geochemistry coloured by tantalum/niobium.
Elevated LCT indicator elements including Li, Ta, Be, Nb, Sn, Cs, Rb and ratios such as Li/Mg and Ta/Nb, as shown in Figure 3 are used to identify highly fertile signatures of potential source granitoids.
Geophysics interpretation
Lightning has started the interpretation of geophysical survey data with a view to develop drilling targets.
The company will integrate the results of geophysics interpretation with soil sampling results and surface mapping to allow further development of its discovery strategy.
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