The Lake Johnston greenstone belt has become the latest lithium hotspot in Western Australia following exploration success by the likes of TG Metals (ASX: TG6) and a potential investment of up to $42.5 million from mining giant Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) in prospective ground held by Charger Metals (ASX: CHR).

Kingsland Minerals (ASX: KNG) now controls more than 620km2 along the western fringes of the greenstone belt after picking up a suite of tenements which were previously tested for nickel and gold, but not lithium.

The new acquisitions are located immediately south of KNG’s existing E63/2068 tenement in the Lake Johnston area, about 150km west of Norseman.

According to KNG managing director Richard Maddocks, E63/2068 was originally acquired for its nickel prospectivity and while that still remains an exploration target, the discovery of lithium-bearing pegmatites in the Lake Johnston area encouraged the company to expand its ground holding.

“Kingsland has strong evidence of lithium mineralisation within our tenement package and exploration has commenced to delineate high-grade, pegmatite-hosted lithium mineralisation,” Maddocks said.

Historical drilling by Western Areas – acquired by IGO (ASX: IGO) 18 months ago – intersected pegmatites up to 44m in thickness adjacent to logged mafic units.

Assaying at the time was purely focused on nickel, so its potential for lithium or associated elements have never been tested.

KNG recently sent selected samples of pegmatitic intervals recovered from those historical drill spoils for re-assaying. Highlights from this program included 5m composite samples of 75ppm Li2O from 93-98m and 278ppm Li2O from 98-103m in hole LPRC007.

Hole LPRC008 also returned 136ppm Li2O from 44-48m despite this interval not being logged as pegmatitic in historical data.

KNG cautioned this sampling and re-assaying program was “not comprehensive” and is only being used to indicate the presence of anomalous lithium.

Historic exploration over the new tenement applications was primarily focused on gold and limited to sparse soil sampling and some scattered aircore and RAB drilling.