Hi GJ,
Sorry for not getting back to you earlier, but I've been out and about again. Just been going over all the latest PLS info and recent satellite images.
To answer your question, I'd be a bit shy about linking the colouring shown in the images to potential ore type because we're only at 15m resolution, so there's a bit of interpretation that needs to go on. Just for one example, sometimes a drill pad might give the appearance of a drill hole. Other times, a hole image will go dull. Here's an example from Lucky Sump which was drilled last year. Have a look at the south east hole and the hole immediately to the west and compare to the rest:
Here are the latest images over PLS and they show that they are still drilling. Here's the image from 09-08-2023. The image from 04-08-2023 had cloud cover. It looks some infill drilling is being done down at Zakanaka about 75 m from the boundary as well as another sequence heading east toward Iron Stirrup. PLS now have 3 east west drill lines that are within 200 m of the KAI Iron Stirrup boundary.
Here's a video gif. The infill drilling at Zakanaka and the eastern extension of the drill line that's inline with plant can be seen.
Now having a look at some of the recent information from PLS and seeing what this might mean for KAI. The following shows a figure from
PLS Presentation 02-08-2023 overlaid onto the PLS and KAI boundaries, the location of Lucky Sump, and the location of a lithium soil anomaly noted in the
KAI report 15-03-2023. The yellow ellipses represent the radiometric surveys noted in the
KAI report 10-05-2016. The blue ellipses are areas where PLS intends to drill in 2024.
The light blue lines represent holes that have been drilled but haven't been included in the modelling yet. That is, PLS are likely to announce another substantial increase in their mineral resource estimates in the near future.
Now for a bit of speculation. Let's say that PLS have been doing
portable XRF work as they've been drilling, so even though they're waiting on lab results to update the model, they've got a good idea that they've hit pay dirt on those blue lines next to the KAI boundary. In fact, they could well have continued drilling south based on real time data from portable XRF. And maybe that's why they want to drill at what they're calling Mt York:
But add to that that KAI have radiometric results indicating that the northern area of KAI's lease around Zakanaka is possibly lithium fertile, there's a chip of lithium in the area, and drilling at Lucky Sump that indicates the possible southern extent of a pegmatite rich area, and the possibility of finding a sizable lithium deposit around Zakanaka starts to look very promising. If the area proves to be as fertile as PLS, then we could be seeing a mineral resource in the vicinity of 50 or 100 Mt, based of the surface area.
Another interesting piece of information that seems to indicate that there might be something south of the border is shown below.
Looking at the South End Area, the 1.1% grade is widening, and there are some spots of 1.8% grade appearing on the west side. The area where the model is cut at the South End is approximately 700 m north of the KAI boundary. Taking all the above information into account, we could be looking at an area of spodumene bearing pegmatites at greater than 1.1% grade extending to the boundary and hopefully, beyond onto the KAI tenements.
The next 6 months are going to tell the story here.
They may have drilled a hole at Roe Hills, but it's a bit difficult to make that call for sure; it could just be a drill pad. These images were from 05-08-2023. The work done between 31-07-2023 and 05-08-2023 is shown in the mark up.
As soon as I get more images of Roe Hills or Mount York, I'll post them.
GLTAH.
(20min delay)