The size of the anomaly means that if its all created by spod mineralised pegmatites (before weathering) you could have one of Australia's big deposits. The Lake Johnston area is sandwiched between two other strips of greenstone that include on the left Mt Holland and on the right many deposits including Mt Marion, Bald Hill, Pioneer Dome. Its in the correct geography for an economically significant find to exist.
Re Soils and the lithium sourceLithium in soils can come from any number of different lithium sources including Lepidolite. They are a pathfinder rather than the end goal (unless your end goal is processing clays like Thacker pass). TG6 took significant care around what the source was through the double confirmation of UV light + Raman chemical signatures. The 2nd Nov slide deck noted:
So far it looks like a spodumene source anomaly. This makes it far more valuable than other anomalies generated from a wider range of lithium sources.
Were TG6 just lucky?TG6 hit 1x duster (TGRC0008); 1x highly weathered peg (TGRC0009); Two upper peg's with some weathering (TGRC0006 & TGRC0007) and two lower peg's (TGRC0010 and TGRC0011). That's a very good hit rate for 6 holes that are 200m apart NW/SE and 100m apart SE/NE.
By implication of the DD tail being a success TGRC0009 has also hit the lower pegmatite. By implication of the stated intention to RC extend holes, there's another pegmatite to extend into so TGRC0008 may not be a duster after all. With hole extensions TG6 could have a 100% hit rate on all its initial exploratory holes. That almost never happens in Lithium.
Hitting a mixture of weathered and partly weathered pegmatites in an area showing elevated lithium in soils would appear to be good science rather than good luck. TG6 however didn't know if it would be lepidolite, Spodumene or some other lithium bearing mineral. They also had no idea if the grade would be good, average or poor. They also didn't know whether the mineralisation would extend beyond the weathered zone or how thick intercept widths would be. Early indications are strong grades that do continue past the weathered zone. As noted above its Spod. So far the intercepts are fairly narrow but being close to flat lying and nearer surface back of hand calc's indicate an acceptable strip ratio and therefore commercial merit.
TG6 were lucky that it was a stacked system because there was nothing to indicate they would hit pegmatites at 86-97m down hole or 112-122m down hole. You need a bit of luck in exploration and that was their bit of luck. This provided the confirmation that there was mineralisation all the way through the pegmatite. Sometimes mineralisation is for only part of the pegmatite width. The 2nd pegmatite also confirmed conditions existed for high grade mineralisation. The average across 87m to 96m for TGRC0011 is a fantastic 1.62%.
If TG6 hadn't been lucky with the stacked pegmatite I believe they would have followed the weathered pegmatite down-dip and ultimately hit an intercept akin to TGRC0011 but it may have taken a few more months.
