Two very small areas bordering the coastline of the Dudley Peninsula on the eastern end of Kangaroo Island have been explored for possible economic, felsic igneous intrusive late-stage pegmatitic vein - hosted, lithium, tantalum, tin, REE and...
Two very small areas bordering the coastline of the Dudley Peninsula on the eastern end of Kangaroo Island have been explored for possible economic, felsic igneous intrusive late-stage pegmatitic vein - hosted, lithium, tantalum, tin, REE and kaolin mineralisation. Pegmatites and aplites forming part of the Cambrian-Ordovician Cape Willoughby fractionated leucocratic S-type granite, which have locally emanated into the surrounding metasedimentary country rocks, were the exploration target. Interest in these rocks was sparked by historic reports of lepidolite mica, a major lithium-bearing primary mineral, occurring within miarolitic cavities in the Dudley mine pegmatite, and then seeing related specimens of that mineral which now formed part of a private collection. No prior exploration or discovery of pegmatite bodies had apparently been done in the area applied for as EL 6213 that covered ground to the south of the abandoned Dudley mine. EL 6212 was taken up to secure the Dudley mine prospect, where spasmodic small scale mining of tourmaline and kaolin had been performed for over a century. During the first licence year, the licensee undertook geological mapping of various pegmatite bodies which could be found on the predominantly disturbed (for farming) private land, and collected 101 grab samples of outcrop, subcrop and float material to assay. Assay results obtained from outcrop rock chip samples included up to 0.43% Li2O, 1600 ppm Rb, 770 ppm Ta, 460 ppm Nb and 180 ppm Cs; float samples returned assay values of up to 0.11% Li2O, 1100 ppm Rb and 560 ppm Cs. These assay results were considered highly significant because lithium is chemically very mobile, and is usually leached from weathered rocks such as those at the surface at Dudley. The field mapping disclosed multiple, substantial pegmatite dykes which vary from tourmaline-rich aplites in the west, to coarse grained, zoned pegmatites in the east. In the main the dykes are hosted by Cambrian Tapanappa Formation marine shelf metasedimentary units, and occupy a broad area extending for ~6 km northeast-southwest and around 6 km north-south. The well-known, main Dudley and coastal pegmatite dyke swarm strikes northeast-southwest, in line with regional metamorphic foliation, and consists of approximately 30 bodies ranging up to 80 m thick having an overall strike distance estimated to be in excess of 550 m. Additionally, a large dyke located almost 2 km due south of the Dudley workings strikes north-south, and projects ~1 km south into EL 6213. It appeared to intersect the Dudley trend at, or close to, the location of the Dudley mine. During licence Year 2, no field work was done owing to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Further desktop studies were conducted and future exploration programmes were planned. This would include soil geochemical sampling over the Dudley pegmatite swarm and surrounding area where anomalous lithium values were obtained from pegmatite float, to try to locate additional pegmatite dykes hidden under cover. A campaign of RC drilling was envisaged, to test at depth beneath soil anomalies for outlining lithium-rich less weathered dykes, and to recover samples to submit for petrological and mineralogical studies. At the end of the year, tenure of the larger, peripheral EL 6213 was allowed to lapse at expiry. Generally poor results for lithium returned by first pass rock chip sampling done there had prompted this decision. From 21 samples of pegmatite outcrop and float which had been assayed, the best results had been 100 ppm Li and 629 Rb, obtained from pegmatite body KID072 which lies close to the southern boundary of EL 6212. During licence Year 3, no work was done on the retained EL 6212, and it too was fully surrendered at the end of that year.
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