Venus targets lithium in Goldfields drilling campaign

Venus Metals Corporation has quickly moved onto the second phase of its lithium chasing reverse-circulation drilling campaign at its Henderson project near Menzies in the eastern Goldfields region of WA.

The drilling will test the depth extension and spatial zone of lithium- caesium-tantalum pegmatites found during recent mapping and sampling.

Venus recently hit returns of 5.8 and 3.6 per cent lithium dioxide at its Emerald SE prospect whilst results from 89 rock samples showed 29 had more than 100 parts-per-million lithium dioxide.

The company says the latest phase of drilling will also test gold anomalies found during its recent air core program that included 7m at 1.13 grams per tonne gold — also at the Emerald prospect.

The Henderson project comprises five exploration licenses covering an area of about 800 square kilometres.

The area looks to be a hub for battery mineral exploration with Red Dirt Metals finding spodumene-bearing lithium pegmatites at its Mt Ida project last year, about 10km from Venus’ tenure.

The region includes Ora Banda Mining’s lepidolite-rich pegmatite tenure south of the Henderson project.

The Henderson tenement covers about 25km of strike length along the Mt Ida-Ularring Greenstone Belt — well known for its historic gold production.

The prospect is along the Ballard fault and close to the Ida fault, about 10km south of the company’s Snake Hill prospect.

Venus has been busy in the lithium sector over the past six months.

In April the company mapped lithium anomalies at its Youanmi lithium project in WA’s Murchison region that coincide with known pegmatite outcrops it hopes are an extension to the recently announced Manindi lithium discovery to the south.

In March the company identified a strong lithium anomaly in recent soil sampling at its Bridgetown East project just 20km south-east of the world-class Greenbushes mine in the South West region of WA.

The phase 3 geochemical soil sampling recorded anomalous results up to 148 parts per million lithium across a 300m x 400m parcel of land with potential remaining open to the north.

Lithium is one of the world’s most sought-after metals on the back of increased electric vehicle production.

Australia produces about 20 per cent of the world’s lithium, mostly from the hard-rock mining of spodumene.

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