Niobe Project (Sold)

Niobe is a project with shallow, high-grade tantalum mineralisation ready to drill, and the possibility of lithium.

• This is a tantalum-lithium pegmatite project
• Single granted prospecting licence (P59/2137) covering 2 square kilometres
• 100% Meridian 120 owned
• Lies in the Dalgaranga greenstone belt, 70 km north-west of Mount Magnet, in an area noted for tantalum and beryllium deposits
• Licence area contains numerous flat-dipping pegmatites containing tantalum, beryl and traces of lithium
• A small open pit excavated at Niobe in 1995 produced about 20,000 tonnes of very high grade ore (> 500 ppm Ta2O5)
• There are shallow, high grade intersections in drill holes just outside the pit and the mineralisation is open at depth
• There are assays over 1000 ppm Ta2O5 in deeper holes nearby
• There has been extensive past drilling on several prospective pegmatites, but all of it is shallow and known mineralisation remains open down dip
• There has been no systematic exploration for lithium. Only 13% of historical drill holes were analysed for lithium, and these are all clustered in a small area. Numerous other pegmatites have never been sampled for lithium
• The best lithium drill results recorded are 1.27%, 0.69%, and 0.52% lithium oxide. There is also a single rock sample from a costean showing 2.13% Li2O
• About half of the drill holes that have been analysed for lithium show significantly anomalous values (above 0.2% Li2O). The anomalous lithium can occur over a substantial thickness – hole MTF10 has 13 metres (approximate true width) averaging 0.39% Li2O (best value 0.69%)
• The prospect is now sold.