Reedy Lagoon picks up more US lithium ground

Reedy Lagoon Corporation has added another 60 per cent to its US landholdings in its hunt for lithium after it staked a highly prospective 2000 hectare spread in Oregon, on trend with two large, existing lithium projects just over the border in Nevada’s McDermitt caldera. Reedy’s new Alvord project is about 60km from Lithium Americas’ Thacker Pass lithium project, described as “the largest known lithium resource in the United States”.

The new Alvord land adds to the 3500ha Reedy already has tied up in southern Nevada in the Alkali Lake North and Clayton Valley projects, also conveniently located within 30km of the Silver Peak Lithium brine operation owned by Albemarle Corp.

Reedy secured the prospective ground by pegging 298 claims over almost 2000ha on US Federal land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management in Harney County, Oregon.

The Alvord project is pursuing lithium brine accumulations associated with geothermal hot springs and playa lakes that correspond with the axis of a rifted valley along the margin of the Northern McDermitt caldera. The acreage spans the marginal zone of the caldera, adjacent valley floor and lake system.

The company’s ground is in the outer boundary of the Northern McDermitt caldera and corresponds with a zone of significant heat flow due to geothermal hot springs controlled by major north-south striking faults.

The historic geothermal activity together with the wide deposition of volcanic ash from the eruption of numerous calderas over time is seen as a positive environment for the creation of lithium enriched brines and lithium clay deposits.

Twenty-five kilometres to the south of Alvord lies the ASX-listed Jindalee Resources lithium-clay deposit and further south, Thacker Pass where Lithium Americas has completed a pre-feasibility study on a two-phase project with a production capacity designed to reach 60,000 tonnes per annum of battery-quality lithium carbonate with a 46-year mine life.

Jindalee is also claiming the largest lithium deposit in the US after upgrading the McDermitt resource to more than 10.1 million tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent. Showboating neighbours aside, Alvord certainly seems to be in the right neighbourhood for a battery metals project.

Reedy noted it still had paperwork to complete for the Alvord tenements, needing to record them with Harney County regulators and the Federal Bureau within an estimated 90-day timeframe.

Once the land is marked as active, Reedy can start breaking ground, although it can kick off geochemistry and geophysical surveys immediately.

The company is looking at an active exploration program over Alvord, including geochemical sampling of geothermal water and playa lake sediments in addition to electrical geophysical surveys to determine the presence of brines in the sub-strata.

It has previously used 3D audio magnetotelluric surveys to locate hyper-saline brines at the Clayton Valley and Alkali Lake projects and the same surveys are also planned for Alvord.

Reedy is also advancing its plans to produce and sell green high purity pig iron by mining mineral magnetite from its Burracoppin deposit in WA to produce iron concentrate and selling it to steel makers in Australia, North America, Europe, UK and Asia.

A final report earlier this month from a CSIRO study on the Burracoppin magnetite deposit has led to the delivery of a new process for measuring the iron content of magnetite deposits known as MagResource.

The MagResource calculation process uses magnetite’s density and magnetic characteristics to develop a linear connection with iron content that can subsequently be used to determine the volume of a deposit’s contained iron.

Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@wanews.com.au