Litchfield Minerals targets high-grade manganese in NT

Massive manganese outcrop in Litchfield Minerals’ Lucy Creek prospect in the NT.

Litchfield Minerals (ASX: LMS) is planning to launch a high-resolution aerial geophysical survey to target multiple hydrothermal manganese occurrences at its Lucy Creek prospect in the prospective southern Geogina Basin, in the NT.

The Lucy Creek project sits 320 kilometres north-east of Alice Springs and covers a vast 1600 square kilometre area. The historically underexplored intracratonic basin hosts extensive high-grade and mapped manganese mineralisation, along with documented base metal anomalies and rare earths enrichment.

Recently sampled high-grade manganese outcropping, which occurs in sedimentary rocks of the basin, lit up with 52 per cent manganese. At Lucy Creek 2, another of Litchfield’s prospects. High-grade manganese outcrops appear to extend over one square kilometre. Historical shallow drilling at the site revealed down-dip extensions showing low-grade manganese mineralisation of 3-11 per cent to a depth of 18m.

Litchfield says the historical drilling has proved highly encouraging for the region’s manganese potential, especially with numerous undrilled surface manganese exposures scattered across a large area of its tenure.

The company’s initial field campaign in September last year returned grades of up to 35 per cent manganese alongside base metal enrichment and hydrothermal pathfinder signatures.

Litchfield considers Lucy Creek to be similar to the Bootu Creek manganese district. The Bootu Creek manganese deposit, owned by ASX-listed OM Holdings, is 110km north of Tennant Creek and is a strata-bound, hydrothermally upgraded sedimentary manganese deposit.

Notably, Bootu Creek has shown that strata-bound manganese mineralisation can form deposits of meaningful scale and economic relevance in the Northern Territory. Originally believed to be surficial mineralisation, drilling conducted in 1997 revealed massive manganese oxides 60m beneath the surface.

Subsequent exploration targeted a conductive electromagnetic conductor, successfully delineating two mineable manganese seams. These seams averaged 5–8m in thickness and 2,000m in length, extending to a depth of 60m.

The Bootu Creek deposits contained 20 million tonnes grading 22 per cent manganese. Although mining started in 2006, it has been in care and maintenance since 2022. Remaining resources are estimated at 6.86 million tonnes at 13.18 per cent manganese, with historical production exceeding 10Mt.

This survey is a key dataset for refining our understanding of the project’s structural architecture, regolith patterns and potential alteration signatures, and for highlighting the trap sites where mineralising fluids may have focused and precipitated manganese.

Litchfield Minerals CEO Matthew Pustahya

With systematic sampling of manganese occurrences continuing, backed by high-resolution airborne magnetics and radiometrics over priority areas and follow-up drilling, Litchfield could be closing in on a valuable Bootu Creek-style manganese resource.

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