porosity question, page-7

It doesn't really make a difference although the headline JORC figure will certainly change with porosity.

The lithium and potash in reality is hosted by two mediums; brine and solids. The brine is salt saturated and there are substantial amounts of evapourite minerals in solid state that contain potassium and lithium. As new meterological fluids enter the system undersaturated they will disolve salt minerals until a supersaturated salinty is reached in equilibrium with the amount of fluid and salt available.

The quanity of brine in situ is certainly most important for resource definition although the resource is somewhat "self-replacing" as fluid from outside the sloare moves in to replace brine pumped out. The permeability is most critical as that determines the production quantity of brine that can be extracted by pumping over a periods of time. It also determines how "interactive" the whole system is allowing new fluids to mix and soak up salinity to replace brines extracted for production.

The resource will be huge by comparison to the annual production rate so in effect anything more than a handful is watsed if you catch my drift. Although a higher porosity always looks nice I don't think in the scheme of ORE development, funding and prodcution hurdles that anything above 20% porosity makes a difference.

cheers