St George Mining has expanded its footprint on the Ida fault in Western Australia’s Goldfields region after picking up a new exploration licence alongside its Destiny rare earths and lithium project.
The recently acquired Prince of Wales tenement is considered prospective for lithium, nickel and gold mineralisation and covers about 8km of greenstones along the Ida fault.
The acquisition complements the Destiny project next door that covers an area of 3350 square kilometres, encompassing more than 90km of the Ida shear zone – a 500km-long regional lineament trending north-south and separating the Eastern Goldfields Terrane from the older Southern Cross Terrane.
Late last year the company delivered what it says are “groundbreaking” clay-hosted rare earths grading up to a huge 5125 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO) in the company’s first drilling foray into its Destiny project.
The Ida fault is considered to control hard-rock lithium mineralisation in the area, including Liontown Resources’ Kathleen Valley lithium deposit that boasts 156 million tonnes at 1.4 per cent lithium oxide and Delta Lithium’s Mt Ida deposit, which has 14.6 million tonnes grading 1.2 per cent lithium oxide.
St George is also on the hunt for lithium at Destiny, with a soil and rock-chip sampling program underway in virgin ground. The company has scheduled rare earths and lithium drilling campaigns at Destiny which are expected to kick off within weeks, while a lithium program is also scheduled to commence at Mt Alexander this quarter.
Importantly, St George notes only a small fraction of Mt Alexander’s 16km strike has been subject to drilling which it says presents some significant exploration upside along the regional-scale lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) corridor.
Management says field mapping and systematic rock-chip sampling have been completed recently on several new targets in one joint venture licence and on three of its 100 per cent-owned tenements.
St George Mining executive chairman John Prineas said: “The acquisition of the Prince of Wales tenement further strengthens our large and strategic land position at Destiny to give St George control of more than 100km of the Ida Fault, a major crustal bounding structure considered highly prospective for a range of mineralisation including lithium. Prince of Wales covers an extensive area of greenstones along the Ida Fault, making it very attractive exploration ground and complementing the prospectivity of the broader Destiny Project tenure.”
Management says that together with the 30km-stretch within its Mt Alexander project, St George now has prospective tenure covering about 130km of highly sought-after exploration ground along the Ida fault.
The company picked up Prince of Wales through its wholly-owned subsidiary Destiny Lithium after entering into a sale and purchase agreement with a private seller.
Under the terms of the deal, St George will acquire Prince of Wales in return for the issuance a tick over 4.4 million fully paid ordinary shares in St George to the counterparty. Destiny Lithium has also agreed to grant a 1 per cent net smelter royalty in regard to any minerals mined from the Prince of Wales tenements.
Management says it has only drill-tested about 7km of the 90km long trend at Destiny, where work will continue to target greenstone sequences, including mapped ultramafics at the contact zone with the potentially fertile granitoids east of the Ida Fault. These are considered priority exploration areas for potential lithium mineralisation, as proven by the recent spodumene discovery by Neometals at its Spargos Project.
Having added a further 8km stretch along the zone after picking up Prince of Wales, the market will be keeping a close eye on what St George can unearth with its upcoming drill campaigns.
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By Michael Philipps
