The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
One of the world's largest lithium drill programs this year North of 60 Mining News – June 9, 2023
Li-FT begins its 2023 Yellowknife Lithium drill program at a 21-meter-thick pegmatite dyke that can be traced for about 1,100 meters at the Fi Southwest project in Northwest Territories.
With its treasury full and a definitive exploration agreement with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, Li-FT Power Ltd. has launched a 45,000-meter drill program aimed at unlocking the obvious but underexplored potential of the large pegmatites – igneous rocks with exceptionally large crystals that are the major global source of the lithium mineral spodumene – spanning its Yellowknife Lithium project in Northwest Territories.
"We are thrilled to have started the drill program at our Yellowknife Lithium project," said Li-FT Power CEO Francis MacDonald. "This is one of the largest exploration drill programs for lithium globally, which we believe is justified by the impressive outcropping exposures of spodumene-bearing pegmatites across the portfolio that have been reported to have potentially economic grades at surface from work completed in the 1970s and 1980s."
Over the past several months, Li-FT has assembled a 141,572-hectare (349,832 acres) land package covering some of the most prospective lithium targets found within the Yellowknife Pegmatite Province, a 9,600-square-kilometer (3,700 square miles) area that extends 120 kilometers (75 miles) east of NWT's capital city.
Further details on the Yellowknife Pegmatite Province can be read at Yellowknife emerging as EV metals hub in the April 7, 2023 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
Li-FT's Yellowknife Lithium project consists of 11 properties divided into two groups – five properties in a road-accessible area immediately east of the NWT capital and a cluster of six properties about 50 kilometers (30 miles) further east.
This year's 45,000-meter drill program will include 100-meter-spaced holes focused on building an initial resource to a depth of roughly 300 meters at the large outcropping pegmatites extending across the company's road-accessible group properties.
"We believe that this drill program will show the scale and potential of the Yellowknife Pegmatite Province and put us well on our way to delivering a maiden resource estimate," said MacDonald.
More than half of Li-FT's 2023 Yellowknife Lithium drill program will target large pegmatite dykes running across Fi, Ki, and Shorty, a trio of properties about 45 kilometers (28 miles) northeast of Yellowknife.
The bulk of this drilling, approximately 16,075 meters, is planned for the Fi Southwest and Fi Main pegmatite dykes that extend for roughly 3,300 meters across the Fi property.
Fi Southwest, the shorter and wider of the two dykes, extends for about 1,100 meters and averages about 21 meters thick on surface. A 540-meter-long central segment contains 5-30% spodumene, based on fourteen trenches dug across the dyke in the 1970s.
About 250 meters to the northeast, the Fi Main can be traced for about 2,200 meters along the surface. This dyke consists of two branching segments, each averaging 10 meters in width. In a 440-meter-long central section of Fi Main, the dykes widen to about 15 meters and contain 5-30% spodumene. Ten trenches cut across this portion of the dykes averaged 1.3% lithium oxide over 14.8 meters.
Five 230-kilogram bulk samples collected from the Fi area by Equinox Resources in the 1980s averaged 1.33% lithium oxide.
Li-FT plans to drill 79 holes at Fi aimed at tracing the pegmatite dykes to a depth of 300 meters.
The 2023 drill program is also slated to include 5,545 meters of lithium resource drilling at Ki, a property just northeast of Fi.
The roughly 12-meter-thick Ki pegmatite has been traced on surface for 1,400 meters that shows abundant spodumene over a 350-meter section where detailed mapping has occurred. Two holes drilled in 1978 tested the Ki dyke to a depth of 50 meters. Both holes intercepted spodumene-bearing dykes with an average grade of 1.58% lithium oxide over 13.7 meters.
Earlier this year, Li-FT optioned Thompson-Lundmark, a property immediately adjacent to Fi that covers a roughly 600-meter extension of the Fi dyke that has not received any systematic sampling. Recent mapping by Li-FT, however, confirms the presence of spodumene within the dyke for at least 400 meters.
The company plans to drill 32 holes aimed at tracing the Ki pegmatite to a depth of 300 meters.
Another 4,445 meters of drilling is planned for Shorty, which lies about two kilometers (1.2 miles) southeast of Fi.
The approximately 25-meter Shorty pegmatite can be traced on surface for 800 meters, with spodumene making up about 40% of the central 400 meters of the dyke.
In 1975, ten closely spaced trenches along a 330-meter middle section of the dyke averaged 1.1% lithium oxide over 21 meters. In 1987, diamond drilling below the trenches intercepted pegmatite dykes at 170 meters below the surface with grades up to 1.15% lithium oxide over 25.85 meters.
Li-FT plans to drill 32 holes aimed at tracing the Ki pegmatite to a depth of 300 meters.
The balance of the 2023 program will target the pegmatite dykes at Big and Nite, a pair of properties closer to Yellowknife.
Around 14,030 meters of this drilling will target two lithium-enriched dyke swarms at Big, which lie about 16 kilometers (10 miles) northeast of Yellowknife.
The roughly 120-meter-wide Big East dyke swarm extends for about 1,200 meters and hosts two main dykes that average six meters thick.
A 350-meter section in the middle of this pegmatite was tested during the 1950s with 33 trenches that averaged 1.4% lithium oxide over 7.3 meters for each of the dykes.
Logs from three holes drilled in 1978 to confirm a mineral potential estimate from the 1950s show that up to 14.5-meter-wide spodumene-bearing dykes are present to depths of 122 meters.
Li-FT plans to drill 46 holes to test the continuity of the Big-East pegmatite dykes over a length of 1,000 meters and to a depth of 300 meters.
Another 6,240 meters of drilling will test Big-West, a 120-meter-wide dyke swarm that hosts two subparallel dykes, each averaging around six meters thick.
In the 1950s, 39 trenches were cut along the entire strike length of the dyke swarm, which averaged 1.1% over 4.4 meters for each of the two dykes. At the same time, nine holes were drilled across the southwest end of dyke swarm. While only fragments of the historical drill data remain, logs show that pegmatite dykes extend as far as 150 meters below surface with an average width of seven meters.
Li-FT plans to test the entire 1,300-meter length of the Big-West dyke swarm to a depth of 300 meters with 45 holes.
Another 4,560 meters of drilling is slated for Nite, which is about six kilometers (four miles) northwest of Big.
The seven-meter-thick Nite pegmatite extends for about 1,300 meters. Closely spaced historical trenching over a 150-meter-long central segment of the dyke averaged 1.57% lithium oxide over 7.1 meters.
One hole drilled at Nite in 1981 cut nine meters of 1.83% lithium oxide at a depth of 58 meters.
The 26 holes planned for Nite this year aim to trace the pegmatite to a depth of 300 meters.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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