Kamativi Lithium and Bulawayo Gold Projects

Zimbabwe

Located in northern Zimbabwe, the Kamativi Lithium (Sn-Ca-Ta-REE-Cu) project neighbours a belt of historic tin-pegmatite mines that is receiving renewed interest owed to it’s lithium bearing pegmatite potential. It’s sister project, Bulawayo is located in south-central Zimbabwe and is home to many historic gold mines. The projects have received licence wide soil sampling and geophysical surveys which have identified multiple high-priority Li-Sn-REE-Au-Ni targets. Follow-up drilling at Kamativi identified an 18m wide zoned lithium bearing pegmatite returning individual 1m assays of over 2% LiO2.

Galileo holds an 80% interest in the Kamativi Li-Ta-Sn-REE-Cu project and the Bulawayo Au-Ni Project, collectively known as the Sinamatella Licences, located in northwestern and western Zimbabwe respectively. Zimbabwe is recognised as one of the most prospective countries in Africa for pegmatite-hosted lithium, associated with its rich endowment of historical tin mines, and has long been a significant gold producer, primarily from Greenstone Belt quartz ‘reef’ deposits that are host to many small to mid-size gold mines and deposits. Prospect Resources Ltd (ASX: PSC) estimates that its Arcadia open pit lithium deposit, situated in eastern Zimbabwe and consisting a series of stacked pegmatite dykes, contains JORC- compliant proven and probable ore reserves of 37.4Mt, grading at 1.22% Li2O, this project was recently sold to China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt for US$422m.

Presentation

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Kamativi Lithium Project

The Kamativi Lithium Project comprises EPO 1782, covering 520km2, and lies on the Kamativi Belt, directly adjacent to the historic Kamativi Tin-Tantalum Mine which operated from 1936 to 1994, and produced 37,000 tonnes of tin, and 3,000 tonnes of tantalum ore from pegmatites. In 2018, Chimata Gold Corp (Zimbabwe Lithium Company) announced a new JORC (2012) compliant Indicated Mineral Resource of 26Mt @ 0.58% Li2O within the Kamativi mine tailings, confirming that the mine contained significant quantities of lithium, and has recently been brought back into production for hardrock lithium by its current Chinese owners.

The Sinamatella licence area encloses extensions and splays of the Kamativi Tin Mine host unit, including mapped pegmatites, and it has been reported that there are old tin-fluorite workings within the Sinamatella property.

The licence area also contains a large extent of the pre-Cambrian Malaputese Formation which is considered to be strongly prospective for VMS hosted copper, surrounding the old Gwaii River Copper Mine and including numerous other copper prospects and occurrences. Little exploration has been carried out in the licence area in the past 25+ years, however there is very good historical data available to advance exploration for lithium prospects.

Work completed

Work completed has included licence wide surface reconnaissance exploration, followed by a Phase One drilling programme in the high-priority Kasiloma area. Exploration was focussed on targeting historical tin mine host units for their lithium pegmatite potential, a total of 5,326 surface stream sediment, soil and rock chip samples were collected and analysed by a leading battery metals consultant from CSA Global. Four broad priority zones were identified anomalous in Li-Cs-Sn-Ta-REE, with follow-up drilling concentrated at the high-priority Kasiloma prospect, a 2km2 area containing outcropping pegmatite swarms of both concordant and discordant orientation, coincident with a Li-Cs-Sn-Ta-REE soil anomaly peaking at 1,000ppm lithium (the limit of laboratory analysis).

A total of 1,428m of diamond core drilling was completed in ten angled holes during the first phase of drilling at the project. The results show extensive lithium enhancement over an area of about 1km x 0.5km, with elevated lithium and tin occurring coincident with cross-cutting, discordant pegmatites and aplites within mica-schist host rock.
A selection of the best lithium and tin assay results returned include;

An 18m wide zoned discordant pegmatite intersected from 28.3m depth in drillhole KSDD001 giving an average mineralised grade of 0.38% Li2O, with internal higher-grade zones, including;

  • o 4m at 1.03% Li2O from 35m downhole within a core mineralised zone containing a peak intercept of 1m at 2% Li2O from 36m depth
  • A much wider 63.94m anomalous zone returning 0.26% Li2O from 12.3m depth across multiple stacked pegmatites and intercalations of mica-schist host rock in KSDD001
  • Multiple zoned pegmatites intersected over a 45m downhole interval from 140m depth in drillhole KSDD010, drilled beneath drillhole KSDD001, with an average grade returned of 41m at 0.17% Li2O from 140m depth and multiple higher-grade zones up to 4.45m at 0.3% Li2O
  • 1.3m returned at 0.19% Sn from 95.2m downhole depth in a discordant pegmatite in drillhole KSDD005

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Bulawayo Gold Project

Zimbabwe has long been a significant gold producer, primarily from Greenstone Belt quartz ‘reef’ deposits. The largest current producer is Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc from its Blanket Gold Mine, which currently operates at a depth of about 750m below surface on multiple ore shoots and produced over 80,000 ounces of gold in 2022. To date, in excess of 1 million ounces of gold have been produced from the property.

The Bulawayo Gold Project comprises EPO 1783 and EPO 1784 and covers a large 1,300km2 licence area near Bulawayo with extensive Greenstone Belt rock formations that are host to many small to mid-size quartz reef gold mines and deposits in Zimbabwe.

No systematic exploration has been carried out for more than 25 years due to the previously unfavourable investment climate in Zimbabwe. Prospective areas with thin sand/alluvial/Karoo basalt cover have never been explored and grab sampling on the property reports assays ranging from 3.9-16g/t Au, confirming the prospectivity of this ground.

Work Completed

In 2022 an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey was flown at 100m line spacing over a 1,108km2 area with the aim of mapping blind extensions of prospective greenstone belt lithology beneath shallow alluvial and Karoo sandstone cover, whilst gaining an understanding of the structural controls to mineralisation. The survey delineated several high priority targets with resemblance to the characteristics of the many known gold mines and deposits in the area, and was followed up by a detailed ground magnetic survey at the Queen’s Mine west area.

A number of regional shears and splays that have hosted former producing gold mines, such as the historic Queen’s Group mines were highlighted by the survey, and these can be seen extending under cover. Further prospectivity is associated with granite intrusive bodies that were detected by the survey, which are the likely source for mineralised fluids and could be associated with mineralisation. In addition, the survey highlighted a suite of ultramafic rocks that could potentially host nickel deposits.

Further work concentrated on defining drill ready targets in priority areas across the licence, with a focus on prospective areas marginal to the Queen’s Mine Area, where historical gold production >44,000 ounces was reported up to 1984. Over 9,500 soil samples were collected during systematic soil sampling, with a total of 2,455 samples sent for laboratory analysis. Several areas were defined for follow-up work, including numerous structural gold targets around the Queen’s Mine Area, gold and nickel targets at Bembezi and gold and base metal targets identified at Master Cecil, where Anglo American had previously identified extensive strike length of banded iron formations.

At the Queen’s Mine area, a 5km2 area with anomalous gold-in-soil values up to 680ppb was highlighted extending over several structures delineated by the aeromagnetic survey to the southeast of the mine, with further anomalous zones indicated along-strike, within consistent and prospective greenstone lithology, some of which extend beneath cover rocks and have received very little work to date.

New targets represent extensions of known gold-bearing structures that typically host both commercial and small-scale gold mining operations in the Queen’s Mine region, and pXRF analyses indicate coincident anomalies of associated elements.

Gallery

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