Cypress Development announces it has begun initial bench scale testing of the feasibility of extracting lithium directly from the claystones at the Company’s 1320 acre Clayton Valley Lithium Brine Project located in Esmeralda County, State of Nevada, USA.
Cypress’ Clayton Valley Project is located on the south flank of "Angel Island" and immediately southeast of the Albemarle Silver Peak lithium mine. Cypress’ Clayton Valley claims share their western boundary with placer claims controlled by Pure Energy Minerals.
Pure Energy has identified a lithium resource at its northern resource area (see Pure Energy’s news release July 28, 2015), that is located to the immediate west of Cypress’ established boundary.
Phase 1 surface sampling of the claystones at Cypress’ Clayton Valley Project was completed at the end of January in an area within the northwest portion of the property on the west flank of Angel Island.
Angel Island is one of several isolated exposures of highly deformed and metamorphosed rocks of Cambrian age that are surrounded by basin fill, salt-rich, evaporite rocks herein referred to as the "claystones".
These claystones are part of the recent basin fill evaporite rocks of Clayton Valley and are thought to be less than two million years old based on work completed by the USGS and other research geologists. The outcropping claystone likely represent uplifted portions of the stratigraphy within which the lithium brines of the basin are produced.
Cypress’ Phase 1 January 2016 initial sampling program returned the highest reported assay result for lithium in claystone known by the Company to be publicly reported in Clayton Valley, Nevada. Several of the assays carried greater than 2000 ppm lithium with one assay sample returning a grade of 3070 ppm lithium content (see news release February 22, 2016).
The lithium assays results encountered by Cypress suggest a strong possibility of an essentially continuously mineralized volume of claystone at surface on extensive portions of Cypress’ Clayton Valley property.
A Phase 2 surface sampling program is underway which will better define the extent of the near surface lithium mineralization identified in the January 2016 program (see news release April 5, 2016). The first sample group has been submitted to ALS Chemex in Reno, Nevada and Cypress is awaiting the assay results.
Given the high grade nature of the lithium contained in these claystones, the Company has begun initial bench scale testing of the feasibility of extracting the lithium directly from the claystones.
Based on the geologic setting, field observations, and the results of initial bench extraction testing on a small group of samples collected, Cypress believes that the lithium in the sampled claystones is contained within a highly soluble carbonate rich clay mineral. The goal of the current bench scale testing is not to complete a detailed mineralogy on the claystones but in fact is to begin to determine the potential economic value of the discovered mineralization.
Cypress is in the early stages of conducting a series of chemical tests designed to determine the solubility of the mineralized claystones on the property and will carry this study forward as additional samples are collected and delivered to the lab.
Additional geologic data gathered from a property wide geologic reconnaissance traverse completed in January show that the property is cut by a series of arcuate NNE trending faults which appear to down-drop the widely exposed evaporite claystone basin fill section down to the west. Opalization of the evaporite section has occurred along these faults as a result of hot-spring activity focused along these structures.
The surface sampling and reconnaissance geologic results received by Cypress to date are viewed as being highly encouraging for the presence of lithium rich brines within the subsurface aquifers below the mineralized claystone.
In Cypress’ view, lithium rich brines are likely to be found below the water table below the mineralized outcrops and may be especially well developed along the arcuate fault zones where fracturing will have increased the permeability of the rock section.
Cypress Development has also made an application for a notice of intent to work permit with the Bureau of Land Management, Nevada in preparation for a planned Phase 3 exploration and drilling program at its Clayton Valley lithium project.
Cypress’ Clayton Valley Project is located on the south flank of "Angel Island" and immediately southeast of the Albemarle Silver Peak lithium mine. The lithium brines that have been produced for the past 55 years at Albemarle Mines (Rockwood) have come from the flanks of "Angel" and "Goat" islands.
Clayton Valley is located within the Basin and Range Province in southern Nevada and is an internally drained, fault bounded and closed basin. Basin-filling strata compose the aquifer system which hosts and produces the lithium-rich brines.
Robert Marvin, P.Geo, Exploration Manager for Cypress Development Corp. is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has approved of the technical information in this release.
Cypress also announces that, pursuant to its stock option plan, the Company has granted incentive stock options to its directors, officers, employees and consultants to purchase up to an aggregate of 1,500,000 common shares in the capital stock of the Company, exercisable for a period of five years, at a price of $0.08 per share.
The Company’s 10% rolling stock option plan was approved by the shareholders at the Annual General Meeting of the Company held on May 26, 2015.