The Kings Valley project is located in Humboldt County, Nevada, USA approximately 100 km N-NW of Winnemucca. There are five areas of lithium mineralization. These five areas are covered by approximately 2,500 federal unpatented claims over an area of approximately 15,233 hectares. The Project has been the subject of various early stage exploration programs.
The project is situated within the south end of the McDermitt caldera and it lies within a well-preserved Miocene collapse structure in northwestern Nevada near the southern Oregon border. The lithium deposits occur within sedimentary and volcano-sedimentary rocks in the moat of a resurgent caldera. The extent and nature of the host rocks is well documented and understood. Several lenses of mineralization have been identified in this region, though the focus of the Project is on the southern Stage I and Stage II Lenses.
The Stage I Lens is the southernmost and smallest of the mineralized lenses in the area. The lens is composed of an approximately 3 to 5 m thick layer of alluvium underlain by lithium-enriched interbedded claystones, ash-rich clays and ash layers up to 60 to 90 m thick in the northwest and southwest ends of the Project area. These claystone-ash layers thin in the middle of proposed potential, pit coinciding with faulting and a predominance of brown-black basalts. Interbedded basalts occur fairly shallowly in the northwest end of the pit and are found deeper in the southeast end. The lithium-rich beds with higher lithium concentrations (>4,000 ppm) are generally found deeper in the deposit (below 30 m). The base of the deposit varies across the Project area averaging between 68 to 90 m and is marked by an obvious transition to an oxidized silicified claystone and ash layer.
Exploration drilling has resulted in identifying clay-rich sequences with lithium concentrations exceeding those in previous studies. In the Project area clays and clay/ashes are disseminated throughout the deposit, but the highest lithium concentrations are broadly found between 36 and 67 m below ground surface.
The Stage II Lens is located approximately 10 km NNW of the Stage I Lens. The Stage II mineralized beds are comprised mainly of a dark green claystone, at times intercalated with arkose beds; in the NE region of the modeled area a fanglomerate body is present. Lithium-rich beds are generally 10 to 60 m thick in most areas, and defined as interesting Li grades as greater than 1,500 ppm. Alluvium cover is variable, ranging from no cover at all to a maximum of about 6 m. At the Stage II Lens, the continuity of the mineralization has been confirmed by drilling at spacings at a nominal 200 m, with a smaller area drilled at about 40 m line spacings.
For both the Stage I and II Lenses, mineralization consists of layered beds of lithium-bearing clay-rich volcaniclastic sedimentary rocks. The main lithium-bearing mineral is reported to be a magnesium clay mineral that includes the Hectorite and Illite group. Hectorite is a rare Li-Mg clay mineral of the smectite group. The beds exhibit very good geological lateral continuity over kilometers, as shown by drill holes spaced on the order of 500 m. The thickness of mineralization varies from less than a meter to more than 90 m with typical intercepts of about 30 m. The extent of mineralization is well known.
To date, there are no analogous deposits in operation worldwide. The hectorite deposits at Hector, California have similar mineralogy, but the geological setting is significantly different.
These deposits are believed to have formed by hydrothermal alteration of layered volcaniclastic sedimentary rocks. It is not clear whether the alteration was essentially syngenetic with deposition of the sedimentary rocks or whether the alteration is a post depositional event.