We would love to hear your thoughts about our site and services, please take our survey here.
London South East prides itself on its community spirit, and in order to keep the chat section problem free, we ask all members to follow these simple rules. In these rules, we refer to ourselves as "we", "us", "our". The user of the website is referred to as "you" and "your".
By posting on our share chat boards you are agreeing to the following:
The IP address of all posts is recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. As a user you agree to any information you have entered being stored in a database. You agree that we have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic or board at any time should we see fit. You agree that we have the right to remove any post without notice. You agree that we have the right to suspend your account without notice.
Please note some users may not behave properly and may post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive.
It is not possible for us to fully monitor all content all of the time but where we have actually received notice of any content that is potentially misleading, untrue, offensive, unlawful, infringes third party rights or is potentially in breach of these terms and conditions, then we will review such content, decide whether to remove it from this website and act accordingly.
Premium Members are members that have a premium subscription with London South East. You can subscribe here.
London South East does not endorse such members, and posts should not be construed as advice and represent the opinions of the authors, not those of London South East Ltd, or its affiliates.
Alright no offence MajorOak but enough with the copy and pasting stuff about lithium mica granites here, this has limited/no relevance to Cornish Metals.
I will proviso this by saying yes you are right. The potential of the lithium micas in Cornwall, particularly in the St Austell granite, has long been known, although largely forgotten. There is a BGS Report (Vol 19, No.4) from 1987 called "The lithium potential of the St Austell Granite" which I have on the desk in front of me, that looks at this in some detail - they sampled hundreds of locations back then and did extensive analyses. Since then of course lithium demand has increased inexorably, and continues to - so the commercial value of these deposits is now significant. There is enough information in that report to show there is a huge lithium mica resource in the old china clay areas, the best spot seemingly being around Gunheath and Hensbarrow beacon, which is what British Lithium have "discovered". That is going to be at least 400Mt @ 0.4% Li2O total resource down to a depth of 250 metres, and I expect you could encompass around 120Mt @ 0.5% Li2O into an openpit design at a guess, which will compare favourably to Cinovec's underground resource. But there is also a larger and lower grade deposit around the Nanpean to St Dennis area, several billion tonnes @ 0.2% Li2O, no doubt with some higher grade parts, and Cornish Lithium are looking at the Trelavour Downs china clay pit area which presumably grades higher than the average for this area.
However, Cornish Metals have no interest in the potential lithium mica resources, and you cannot buy shares in British Lithium currently. Cornish Metals only own a free carried stake and royalty in the Cornish Lithium brine project on their mineral right holdings, including the United Downs area. They do not own a stake in Cornish Lithium's projects that aren't on their mineral rights. So if the lithium micas turn out to be good, that isn't going to benefit Cornish Metals (CUSN).
The primary value driver here is the United Downs copper-tin project, and South Crofty tin project - not lithium. That isn't going to change.
On page 500 of Simons, I would suggest looking at the barcharts and the G3-G5 Lithium types, again a huge positive above Cinovec mine as they have only low grade 0.45-0.7 averages for 75-80% of the WHOLE deposit.
Lepidolite, Zinnwaldite and Lithium infused Siderophylites found at Pikes Peak, Colorado, US.
http://libeprints.open.ac.uk/48701/8/Image%20of%20Fig.%206
Page 500.
"Note that high abundances for many of the metals are centred over the G5 granites of the Tregonning and St. Austell granites, with the exception of Bewhich has high abundances inG2 granites. Hemerdon, south of the Dartmoor Granite, shows high Sn, Sb, Wand Bi and is most likely affected by subsolidus / hydrothermal processes."
As with my forecast for Cinovec ( EMH ) by understanding just where the melt points are in relation to old historic mine data and the current knowledge of roughly the geothermal high points, topography around each pluton it is possible to see the melt direction in theory. I will say this now and you can hold me to it later in the year. "The resources upgrade at EMH WILL go to 10 million tonnes of Lithium Concentrate , up from the current 7.5mt that is official." I have had this estimate for about 3 years now.
Tin at Cinovec , although not as good grades as Cornwall Tin ( and EMH certainly have ZERO Copper ;-) ), Tin will go up towards 500,000-650,000 tonnes in situ. Again this is my own estimation, so NOT financial advice , just a pointer to show it is possible to deduce the outcome.
Why focus on lithium possibilities Major Oak ? I suspect Cornish Lithium will bring Cornish Metals up with it and although I don't know, but would not be beyond putting a 1p bet on Cornish Metals getting help to move things a lot quicker than is currently being stated ? I would not bet against it anyway.
The partition coefficients for In, Sn, Sb, W and Bi in biotiteand garnet in a basanite (Adam and Green, 2006) indicate incompatiblebehaviour of these elements during melting, with the exception of In,which displays compatibility in garnet (garnet/melt = 10.3 ± 9.3 to87 ± 50,Adam and Green, 2006). Approximations of mineral/melt par-tition coefficients using phenocryst/matrix measurements indicate thatbiotite and muscovite host Sn and W (i.e. Dmineral/meltN1), whereas feld-spar and quartz can host Sn and W, but with Dmineral/melttypicallyb1(e.g.Lehmann, 1990); quartz from rare metal granite (RMG) pegmatitescontains less than 1 ppm Sn (Breiter, 2014). This is consistent with thefindings of this study; mineral/melt ratios of Sn and W in micas areN1andb1 for feldspars (Appendix,Table A.1.), implying that fractionationof an assemblage with a significant modal abundance of feldspar(+ quartz) over mica will result in a melt with higher Sn and W thanthe parental melt. Accessory minerals are also an important host ofNb, Ta, Sn and W within the source region, particularly Fe–Ti oxides(e.g.Stepanov and Hermann, 2013; Romer and Kroner, 2016).
If Cinovec is now priced at £1.00 approx, Cornwall and the right drill sites should from the data I have been reading all day produce a similar type and possibly better grades in general than Cinovec. see EMH.
Cornubian Batholith :- Cligga and Lands End area
G2 Granite Li siderophyllite 6070ppmm Tin 53ppmm
G3 Granite Li siderophyllite 3247ppm Tin 66ppmm
G3 Cordierite Lithium sample 3857ppmm
G4 Zinnwaldite ( also Cinovec EMH ) 16,299ppmm Tin 111ppmm
G5 LEPIDOLITE LITHIUM 22,650ppmm
It is clear the grades are there in Cornwall with the help I suspect of the hotter nearer surface geothermal heat in isolation rather than within a central larger continent. Thus the REAL prospects of brines being of great grades, my suggestion would be (once more tests have been carried out ) WORLD CLASS grades, will in time be proven.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314656893_Lithium_and_trace-element_concentrations_in_trioctahedral_micas_from_granites_of_different_geochemical_types_measured_via_laser_ablation_ICP-MS
http://libeprints.open.ac.uk/48701/8/simons.pdf
And in relation to these Lithium Siderophylites, Pikes Peak, El Paso, Colorado Lithium extraction. These unique crystals are found in Cornwall to contain rather high grades as shown above.
https://www.mindat.org/min-3651.html
I have been invested in Cinovec mine since 2017 and had the mine plans then. No surpise it is finally being bought and heavily linked to a VW takeoff within 2-4 weeks. 100,000tpa of LCE is easily possible of zinnwaldite mica lithium as we have here in Cornwall.
Time will tell all.