Hoping to join the ranks of global caesium producers is Western Australia-based lithium exploration play Pioneer Resources (ASX: PIO), which has encountered what it considers to be potentially economic pollucite mineralisation at the company’s Pioneer Dome lithium-caesium project, located in the Goldfields region of Western Australia.
Drilling carried out by Pioneer in 2016 returned an intersection of 6m of high-grade caesium grading 27.7 per cent caesium oxide (Cs2O) from 47m, which at the time the company said was likely to be in the form of pollucite.
“Drill intersections of this grade and width are extremely rare; a literature search has identified less than five occurrences globally where caesium occurs at this grade and down-hole width,” Pioneer said at the time. This was followed up late in the year with a further strongly mineralised caesium intersection, of 7m at 16.2 per cent Cs2O from 47m and 6m of 1.65 per cent lithium oxide (Li2O) from 56m, which Pioneer declared to and confirm an extension to the pollucite mineralisation encountered by the initial discovery hole.
Pioneer completed nine drill holes displaying visual evidence of having intersected the lens of high-value caesium mineralisation—considered most likely to be pollucite—over a strike length of approximately 60m Mineralisation remains open to the south, trending into an area where Pioneer considers additional caesium geochemistry anomalies to be present.
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