Surge Battery Metals Inc. reported that it is continuing to expand the footprint of the Nevada North lithium clay deposit in Elko County. The company said visual inspection of each of the five holes drilled so far in the Phase 2 drilling program confirms the presence of similar clay horizons discovered in the 2022 program, now over a much wider area. The drill cores are being sent to ALS labs for assay.
The Nevada North Lithium Project is in the Granite Range about 25 miles southeast of Jackpot and 45 miles north-northeast of Wells.
In late July, Surge announced a significant expansion of its land holdings at the Nevada North Lithium Project through additional claim staking and through an agreement with M3 Metals Corp. With the additional staked lands and including the interest in the M3 Lands, Surge has increased its land position in the area from about 6,270 acres to 12,800 acres.
In the current drill program, drill pad locations were set out to test for extensions of the clay beds intersected in 2022 drilling. Surge said the average lithium content within all near surface clay zones intersected in 2022, applying a 1,000 part-per-million cut-off, was 3,254 ppm.
The potential to significantly expand the area of the deposit was interpreted from the recently completed geophysical survey.
Of the eight holes planned in the current program, seven can be regarded as step-out holes from the 2022 program. Surge said one of the recently completed drill holes successfully intersected the known lithium clay horizons, thereby extending the strike length of the deposit from the current 5,315 feet to more than 9,842 feet. Given this result, Surge has applied to the Bureau of Land Management to relocate one of the planned drill holes to a new location about 1,640 feet north of the recent drill hole with the successful intersection. Surge may revisit some drill holes for further depth in order to completely test the full extent of clay layers previously intersected.
Leveraging off the success of the first five sonic drilled holes, Surge has contracted with Alford Drilling of Elko to diamond drill the last three holes. This will allow drilling to reach greater depths and to provide a larger core sample to support metallurgical analysis and study by Surge’s director, Dr. V.J. Mehta, an expert in lithium mining, extraction, and processing.
“I am excited to report that with five holes completed so far in the second round of drilling, and with clay layers intersected in each new hole, we can measure a dramatic increase in the overall known area of clay bearing horizons,” said Greg Reimer, Surge’s chief executive officer, “The incorporation of diamond drilling along with the change to incorporate drill location “W” will further test the boundaries of the deposit.
