Newly listed James Bay Minerals’ (ASX:JBY) has performed strongly since IPO thanks to a dominant, spod-rich, but underexplored landholding in the James Bay region.
It has enjoyed a steady stream of early stage exploration success across the Joule, Aero and Aqua properties in the La Grande sub-province, along trend from Patriot Battery Metals’ (ASX: PMT) 109.2Mt Corvette deposit.
Aqua is also right next door to Fin Resources’ (ASX:FIN) Cancet West project, where FIN recently identified “abundant spodumene crystals within a broad pegmatite outcrop” less than 250m from the tenement boundary.
Recent helicopter surveys of Aqua have now identified five large outcropping pegmatite dykes, interpreted to be a continuation of FIN’s spodumene-rich pegmatites.
At Aero, JBY has discovered the 560m-long Warhawk pegmatite, and subsequently the Gauntlet pegmatite – both sampled to contain high grades of lithium.
Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) readers, which fire off pulses into materials to generate element measurements, have now identified more high concentrations of lithium at the Hawker and Gauntlet pegmatites at Aero.
That means elevated lithium readings, associated with a “prominent green mineral” are now confirmed along an impressive 2.5km stretch at Aero.
Initial observations of the green mineral identified in outcrop ranges from 2-10 per cent of the whole rock composition.
The explorer says the collected samples will undergo petrography or XRD analysis to confirm if the identified green mineral is, in fact, spodumene and the makeup of the contained mineral content.
Lab assays will determine the true nature of the lithium values and will be reported once processed.
JBY exec director Andrew Dornan says maiden field program results continue to build the case for the company’s maiden drill program Aero.
“We now have lithium mineralisation confirmed across three separate pegmatites, spanning a strike length of 2.5km,” he says.
“This is only the beginning, and we look forward to building on these fantastic results over the coming 12 months across all three of our La Grande properties.”
