AUSTRALASIAN METALS LIMITED Australasian Metals Limited signed a binding Sale and Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Prodigy Gold NL to acquire a 90% joint-venture interest in 5 tenements covering ~880 km 2 in the northern Arunta pegmatite province, Northern Territory (Burrow Creek lithium project). They are located roughly 100 kms to the northeast of the Company's Mt Peake Lithium project (ELA32830). Importantly, the tenements are situated on privately-owned land, with good road and railway access.
There are historical Ta-Sn mineral occurrence records across several tenements, and pegmatite rocks have been mapped, with regional geological mapping by previous explorers and government geologists (Bagas and Haines, 1990, Frater 2005, Donnellan 2013, Scrimgeour, 2013). The known tin-tantalum and lithium pegmatite fields in the Northern Territory (NT) are on the exposed western and southwestern margins of the Pine Creek Orogen and northern margin of the Arunta Region. Their location along craton margins is typical of Proterozoic terranes; the granitic hosts are typically late- or post-tectonic and are associated with pre-existing granite contacts along deep regional faults.
The most important producing area is the Bynoe pegmatite field in the Litchfield pegmatite belt of northern NT. Other producing areas in the Northern Territory include the Shoobridge field in the southwest of the Pine Creek Orogen, and the Barrow Creek and Anningie/Napperby fields in the northern Arunta. The Arunta Region, including the Prodigy Gold tenements, is a large portion of a multi- deformed and variably metamorphosed terrane along the southern margin of the North Australian Craton (NAC) with variable deformation, episodes of multiple magmatic activity and metamorphic overprint.
Magmatic activity in the Palaeoproterozoic was extensive and in some areas, repetitive. Both syn- and post-magmatic activity resulted in pulses of felsic and mafic magmatism that extended over long periods. During various periods in the Palaeoproterozoic, emplacement of deep seated granite, multiple deformation, volcanism and sedimentation commonly occurred in different areas of the Arunta Region.
The Lander Rock beds, Bullion Schist, Ooradidgee Group and Killi Killi Formation were deformed and metamorphosed during the Stafford-Murchison Event (18101790 Ma). This is a period of extensive granite magmatism in the central to southern NAP, with emplacement of the syn-tectonic Murchison Suite (Ooralingie and Bean Tree granites, and parts of the Barrow Creek and Ali-Curung granite complexes) and equivalents (Boothby Orthogneiss, Harveston Granite, Anmatjira Orthogneiss, and Stafford and Esther granites). The `S'-type Barrow Creek Granite Complex and Esther Granite are considered to the source of the Barrow Creek and Anningie/Napperby pegmatite fields.
