@thenewboss asks "Did we get the samples from 10 samples sent to Australia?"
The assay results are a little confusing. As far as I can see, the 10 samples sent to Australia were assayed earlier than these Brazilian lab results and those Aussie results provided on 21st November 2022, when the company decided to take up the 20% option on the north eastern tenements. Anomalous lithium was found from those Australian results, similar to what has been found in the Brazil lab results announced here.
The results in this announcement are for another 10 samples which are a subset of the 28 rock chips sent to a Brazilian lab for assaying. These also contain anomalous lithium. It is worth noting though that none of these samples are from the Salinas II tenements that lie within 5-10km of Latin Resources and 50km from Sigma. The Salinas II project is the project that I am really interested in as we already know that LRS and Sigma have found decent grades of spodumene and plenty of it. Anyone selling without knowing what is at Salinas II has rocks in their head IMO.
Take a look at the following diagram to see the prospectivity of the Salinas II project (which is labelled on this diagram as MARS MINES Ltd TENEMENTS). It looks to me that there are pegmatites in this Salinas II area (yellow highlighter) that appear to have a deeper and wider area to grow into.
Way oversold in my opinion although I also question why a trading halt was needed. They could have identified LCT pegmatites with much less fanfare, and, in fact they had done so in November. The price has gone as high as 0.012 since then so I could not resist buying more at 0.005. In February, holders will have the chance to buy one option for every 5 shares held and at a price of only 0.001 so any bought now will qualify (please correct me if I am wrong).
It is interesting too that the company appears to have gone for the least prospective pegmatites they could find at Juremal, Custodia and Porto D'Agua. Perhaps this is because they are conducting due diligence so did not look so hard at the areas they already expected to provide good results. The wording below from the announcement seems to indicate this:
"The samples taken in the Porta D’Agua project were of fresh rock from one pegmatite and show that, although the pegmatites are LCT type, the sampled pegmatite is not in the highly lithium productive zone that may exist in the large swarm of pegmatites confirmed on the ground. It is likely that more fractionated pegmatites do occur in the tenement and a planned stream sediment sampling program will assist the Company in identifying them."
"The sample taken on the Cerro Cora tenement was from a pegmatite situated adjacent to the granite contact and was not expected to contain significant mineralisation, provided the granite adjacent to the pegmatite was the source of the pegmatites. Assay results showed this to be the case, however these results will assist in identifying which parts of the Cerro Cora tenement may contain mineralised pegmatites, thereby focusing future exploration activities."
"Of note is that these samples were collected on a wide spaced short field reconnaissance program, with only a very small portion of the JV project areas being visited. The fact that LCT pegmatites have been identified on the tenements is very encouraging and with more detailed exploration planned, it is considered likely by Mars and Gold Mountain geologists that additional LCT pegmatites will be identified."
"The results for Juremal and Custodia are considered by Mars Mines geologists to be very encouraging and indicate that with focused mapping and sampling campaigns the Juremal and Custodia Projects could rapidly be progressed to the drilling stage."
(20min delay)