Size: 2,490 Hectares – 5km’s x 2km’s
Ownership: 100%
- Santa Clara is located 70 km northeast of Zacatecas city, 8 km north-northwest of the town of Illescas.
- Santa Clara is the largest of the Company’s Zacatecas-area salars and host to the highest-average grade potassium sediments. This salar has seen a significant amount of historical work from Geological Survey of Mexico as well as private operators. Some 380 five-metre-deep pits were dug on a 200-metre grid across the entire salar. These pits were sampled every vertical metre and approximately 1900 samples were collected. 848 of these samples were assayed using analytical techniques comparable to those utilized in analyzing the 2017 exploration samples. These samples returned potassium values ranging from 1.25 to 6.61%, with an average value of 4.80%, and lithium values ranging from 17 to 723 ppm with an average grade of 264 ppm. Further to this, OrganiMax assayed a composite sample made up of 10 separate samples from this salar material; this composite sample returned a grade of 4.1% potassium, 464 ppm lithium and a range of other chemicals important for farming. In addition to the encouraging chemical compositions from the lab work, leach testing of this composite sample indicates a potassium recovery of 48% and lithium recovery of 79% from the sediments.
- In 2017, field personnel collected 59 surface sediment samples using a hand-held auger on an off-set 500-metre grid. Material collected during this program returned an average of 3.55% potassium and 392 ppm lithium.
- The size, geology and high potassium content of Santa Clara make this deposit a primary target for K- and Li-rich brines at depth. Depth of the basin remains unknown; however, the Geological Survey of Mexico estimates the lacustrine sediments reach up to 300 metre depth in the southwestern lobe of the salar (see schematic cross section below).
- Sediment sampling is restricted to 5 metre depths in most areas; excellent exploration potential to increase the Mineral Resource at depth and by extending the sampling to the edge of the salar basins where sampling has not taken place.
- Santa Clara salar is the largest salar in the district and hypothesized that it may be the centre point of a regional basin.
- Geophysics results indicate basin depths of 100m to 1,000m which is analogous to similar producing brine aquifers at Clayton Valley, NevadaPlease add the two geophysics images found in the MexiCan presentation on slide 11 after the one image in this section.
