The Cowan Project is a combination of 10 tenements owned by Bloomier Resources and 7 tenements owned by Liatam Mining. The project is located approximately 55km east of Widgiemooltha, 60km southeast of Kambalda and 105km southeast of Kalgoorlie in the Eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia (Figure 1). The project abuts the Bald Hill lithium project.
The projects tenement package covers approximately 1,380km2 and comprises of 13 exploration licences 1 exploration licence application and 2 exploration licences in a joint venture with Serendipity Resource Pty Ltd (with Bloomier Resources holding 80%). Bloomier Resources has engaged Liatam Mining to conduct exploration activities on its tenements it owns within the Cowan Project.
The Cowan Project lies within the southern part of the Eastern Goldfields Super-terrane of the Archaean Yilgarn Craton. The host sequence to most of the pegmatites within the project is the Belches Formation, comprising of deep marine sediments metamorphosed to amphibolite metamorphic grade, which has post-dated the emplacement of the mafic and ultramafic greenstone sequences to the east and west.
A couple of rare element lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) pegmatites have been defined to date within the project area. These are the Bald Hill – Mt Belches and the Claypan Dam – Madoonia Pegmatite belts. The Bald Hill – Mt Belches Pegmatite belt is the most well-defined belt in the area and has an extent of approximately 18km, before being concealed by salt lakes and flood plains (Figure 2). Minimal exploration has been undertaken in this belt within the Cowan Project in the past.
Potential for gold exists in the southern and far eastern portions of the tenure. In the far eastern area folded banded iron formations are known to be present while historical low-level gold soil anomalies exist in the southern area of the tenement package. This highlights the potential for gold mineralisation and further work is warranted to investigate this opportunity.
Exploration work conducted to date includes mapping and auger geochemistry sampling to effectively test for lithium mineralisation at the bedrock interface and within the regolith below the transported cover. This will assist in identifying drill targets across the tenement package. This work is continuing across the tenement package.
RC drilling was conducted on seven targets in 2022. These targets were identified through mapping, auger geochemistry and historical RAB geochemistry. Pegmatite was intersected at four of those targets, with significant mineralisation identified in one of those targets, located approximately 11km along strike to the north-northwest of the Bald Hill mine. Encouraging intercepts from that target included:
4m @ 1.09% Li2O from 114m
16m @ 1.26% Li2O from 135m
5m @ 1.34% Li2O from 147m
6m @ 1.41% Li2O from 24m
4m @ 1.08% Li2O from 164m
2m @ 1.43% from 47m
Additional heritage approvals are being sought so that follow-up drilling can be conducted on this target and other targets.