Muscovite in pegmatites is a good thing. I just depends on the fractionation of the pegmatite as to whether it may have spodumene or not. Hopefully the pegmatites MEG have found are the right ones, or lead to the right ones
More information can be found in the following research paper. Just some light reading.
Abundances of the alkali elements Li, K, and Rb were determined for more than 130 muscovites from the Li-rich pegmatites to track the degree of pegmatite fractionation as a pathfinder for spodumene mineralization
Muscovite is one of the most common minerals in granitic pegmatites, with both the Li abundance and K/Rb ratio serving as exploration guides to assess the potential for Li-aluminosilicate mineralization
Tracking abundance variations of the alkali trace elements Li, Rb, and Cs in muscovite provides one means of assessing the extent of pegmatite melt fractionation [7,8,9,10]. Exclusion of these elements from the structure of felsic rock-forming minerals during granite magma crystallization leads to their accumulation and enrichment in residual pegmatite-forming melts [11].
Because muscovite is a common constituent of Li-rich pegmatites, the determination of K/Rb ratios can provide a mineralization vector mineral for Li exploration.
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