eBusiness Weekly
Oliver Kazunga
GALILEO Resources PLC has completed a reconnaissance mapping and sampling programme at the Kamativi Lithium project and the company now awaits results of laboratory analysis that will confirm prospects to drill testing stage.
The United Kingdom-headquartered resource group, which also owns a gold project in Bubi District near Bulawayo, said the detailed reconnaissance mapping and sampling programme over Kamitivi has identified four target zones with potential for pegmatite-hosted lithium, tin and tantalum.
“The company is pleased to provide an update on a reconnaissance mapping and sampling programme completed over the Kamativi Lithium project in southwest Zimbabwe.
“Detailed reconnaissance mapping and sampling over the Kamativi lithium project has identified four target zones with potential for pegmatite-hosted lithium, tin and tantalum,” it said in an update released this week.
The Kamativi project area comprises exploration licence Exclusive Prospecting Order (EPO) 1782 covering an area of 520 square kilometres in western Zimbabwe.
“The target zones lie along strike extensions or on parallel structures to the Kamativi Tin Mine which contains a JORC (2012) compliant Indicated Mineral Resource of lithium in tailings of 26,3 tonnes at 0,58 percent Li2O (Lithium Oxide).”
The resource group said former workings for tin, tantalum and tourmaline are noted within the project area on the historic geological maps but lithium was not targeted at that time.
Presently, Galileo has 29 percent interest in the Kamativi project, held through its interest in BC Ventures, along with an option to earn an additional 51 percent interest through spending a combined total of US$1,5million on exploration and evaluation in the project area and over the Bulawayo gold-nickel property by January 21, 2024.
Galileo chairman and chief executive officer, Colin Bird, was quoted as saying: “We have meticulously sampled the pegmatites over four target zones across our Kamativi lithium project licence area with the mission of identifying lithium occurrences, as well as testing the significant potential for tin and tantalum.
“We await the results of laboratory analysis and, if appropriate, we will aim to progress confirmed prospects to drill testing stage.
“We also have a substantial number of additional samples in storage for analyses, depending on the results of the current batch.
“The prospects for lithium remain strong and Zimbabwe is an emerging source of this new age metal.”
Galileo announced the intended reconnaissance mapping/sampling programme at Kamativi in April this year and the exercise has been completed over four target zones on the Kamativi licence area to check for pegmatite hosted lithium mineralisation, as well as associated elements such as tin and tantalum.
The targets were chosen based on location along structures on strike from and/or parallel to the Kamativi tin mine zone which contains an associated lithium resource in tailings, as well as mapped pegmatite dyke occurrences and historic workings on the Galileo property.
A total of 5 326 samples were collected in the form of rock chip, stream sediment and soil samples, the sample type being dictated by the extent of bedrock exposure, and the terrain.
Of the above samples, 1 661 were initially selected for laboratory analysis based on pXRF analysis, comprising 79 rocks, 87 streams and 1 495 soils.
Soil sampling was carried out on a 400 metres x 40 metres grid spacing.
Analysis is planned for a suite of elements including lithium, tin, tantalum, tungsten and a range of potential lithium indicator elements.
Positive results arising from this programme will be followed up by detailed mapping, sampling and possible geophysics, with the aim of identifying priority targets for drill testing.
The company will provide a map of these areas once all assay results are received.
Meanwhile, Galileo has identified three priority gold and nickel exploration targets originally generated from the airborne geophysical survey on the Bulawayo gold project.
Following the exploration programme at the Bulawayo project, the resource group is prioritising targets at Queens West, Bembeshi Nickel and Bembeshi Nickel.
In April this year, Galileo announced that for the Bulawayo gold project, the company had signed a contract with Xcalibur Airborne Geophysics (Pty) Ltd. to carry out a fixed-wing airborne magnetic and radiometric survey over the most prospective parts of EPO 1783 and EPO 1784.
The survey comprised 12 184 line kilometres of flying at 100 metres line spacing covering extensive greenstone belt rock formations that are host to many small to mid-size quartz reef gold mines and deposits in Zimbabwe
The aim was to map critical structures and belts linking the many known small-scale gold mines and deposits to help identify targets for the potential development of a medium to large scale mine.
The Bulawayo licences host an impressive number of former producing mines, active small-scale gold mining operations and artisanal activity.
The area also includes the Queens Mine, a commercial underground gold mining operation.
The airborne survey completed earlier this year generated a substantial number of high-quality, gold and nickel targets the majority of which warrant follow up and Galileo has selected a small number of these targets to confirm the veracity of the geophysical data and to consolidate its position in the Bulawayo region.
