Trinex Minerals (ASX: TX3) will prioritise undertaking works at its Halo-Yuri Project will once the ice has completely melted from the main lakes around the asset in Canada.
Given its Ross Lake Project is drill ready, Trinex has prioritised this project as the focus for further assessment as early as possible in the summer field season to clear it for diamond drilling during the summer.
Both the MAC Lithium and Halo-Yuri projects require more geological field mapping and sampling to better define specific drill targets. Once this work has been completed, Trinex says a decision will be made on the timing of the additional archaeology work.
During the northern winter months, work on its projects in the Northwest Territories focused on First Nations Engagement, desktop archaeology studies, and exploration planning for the summer field campaigns.
In its summer 2024 work programs, Trinex is planning a concentrated block of field work as soon as practical to investigate a series of target pegmatite systems identified.
In the meantime, the summer fieldwork will focus on the MAC Lithium Project where the company has identified a large LCT pegmatite swarm in the south of the project where coarse grained pegmatites contain beryl and have associated decreasing K/Rb ratio trends.
This pegmatite trend continues into the newly staked area to the south of the project and is a priority for summer fieldwork.
At the Ross Lake Lithium Project, further archaeology work is required to follow up the completed desktop studies which highlighted some areas requiring on-ground assessment prior to drilling.
Trinex Minerals Managing Director Will Dix says the company has only just started to build the picture of the potential of these projects and are “encouraged by everything we have seen in the initial exploration program”.
“We are fully funded for our summer exploration activities, and we look forward to providing updates as we move forward.”
At the Halo-Yuri, newly acquired 50cm resolution satellite imagery for the project has enabled the company to interpret hundreds of pegmatite targets to follow up in the summer field season.
Mapping by the Northwest Territories Geological Survey (NTGS) identified numerous pegmatites that are visible in satellite imagery. In this area pegmatites range from 10 to >50m thick and up to 1km long.
The identified pegmatites are associated with the same suite of 2-mica granites that are proximal to the ‘OIG’ and ‘SWEET’ spodumene bearing pegmatites and other spodumene pegmatites regionally throughout the Slave Geological Province.
At MAC, work completed during the late 2023 summer field campaign confirmed the presence of a large LCT pegmatite swarm in the south of the project where coarse grained pegmatites contain beryl and have associated decreasing K/Rb ratio trends confirming the prospectivity of several areas.
Trinex says the K/Rb ratio is a valuable exploration tool as it indicates degree of fractionation of the pegmatite, with a decreasing ratio (increasing Rb vs K) showing increasing fractionation.
Lithium/spodumene-bearing pegmatites are typically in the most fractionated part of the system. The pegmatites at Ross Lake and southern area of MAC are also relatively enriched in rare elements (Be, Ta, Cs, Sn) further indicating increasing fractionation.
At Ross Lake, Trinex has defined priority drill targets following high grade results from spodumene-bearing rock chips including 3.31% Li2O, 2.27% Li2O, and 1.84% Li2O from the “Dyke 75” area3.
The company says work is continuing to complete the necessary permitting requirement prior to drilling during the Canadian summer field season.
Write to Adam Orlando at Mining.com.au
Images: Trinex
