Lithium – Buchanan’s Lithium Province, QLD

SMA’s tenement holding on the East Coast of Australia covers 230 km2, including a newly identified (greenfields) Buchanan’s Lithium Province. Significant values of Caesium and Rubidium occur with Lithium in this Province.

The Buchanan’s Lithium Province is the largest reported undeveloped prospect on the East Coast of Australia. During April and May 2016, SMA conducted a drilling program with the express aim of drilling to the JORC standard, a small resource of Tantalum. 24 core holes were drilled in four pegmatite bodies Acacia 1, Acacia 2, Acacia 3 & Coolabah 1. The Tantalum resource proved to be too small and low grade for a viable mining operation without taking the Lithium resource into account.

Only three of the seventy anomalous pegmatites have been drilled to an inferred resource status to date. Significant mineralized intercepts (with grades ranging from 1 to 1.7% lithium oxide over down hole widths of up to 10 metres) were recorded for the Acacia 2 & Coolabah 1 Pegmatites. Anomalous tantalum mineralization coincides with the lithium “envelope” in these pegmatites. Grades vary for tantalum oxide from around 300 to 3,300 ppm over down holes widths from 1 to 8 metres.

In 2018 a re-examination of drill core resulted in the discovery of Lithium-enriched secondary micas in the host metasediments. These micas formed an overprint on the metamorphic fabric and contained up to 2% Li2O in their lattice. A broad scale sub soil sampling program was undertaken with results that indicated a significant and intense alkali metals metasomatic event had occurred in the Buchanan’s area.

SMA presented a paper at the WA 2019 Lithium Conference on the 2nd July 2019 and announced that the company had discovered what appears to be broad scale Lithium-metasomatism in country rock. Grades to 1.1% Li2O were recorded in drill core. Several drill holes intersected significant widths of mica schist interleaved with pegmatites. The schists were found to be enriched in the volatile mobile elements Lithium, Rubidium and Caesium while the associated pegmatites were depleted in these same elements.

In February 2020 SMA was awarded a Queensland Government grant under the Collaborative Exploration Initiative program, Round 3 for exploration of New Economy minerals. SMA drilled two diamond core holes and was able to demonstrate from the petrology of samples that an intense phase of alkali metals metasomatism had occurred around the time of Lithium-enriched leucogranite intrusion in the area (1,442 Myr). This postdates all major events in the region. SMA has now developed exploration techniques and a knowledge base that will enable a commercial evaluation of this “new and novel style” of mineralisation in Queensland.

 Similar, but not identical, style deposits around the world include Cinovec in the Czech Republic, San Jose in Spain, Sadisdorf & Zinnwald in German. These deposits contain very large volume, low grade Lithium resources. The tenements held by SMA have the potential to contain a world class high volume-low grade deposit of Lithium. Lithium micas are the lowest cost feedstock for downstream processing. Importantly, the Buchanan’s area mineralisation is enriched in the scarce element Caesium.

 It is SMA’s intention to find a strategic partner to assist in defining and developing the industrial and technological mineral potential of the Buchanan’s Lithium Province over the next 2 to 5 years. The view of SMA is that these significant technology metals will continue to increase in demand and SMA intends, as a long term goal, to develop and mine these minerals.