Monaro Lithium Project Canada
In July 2023, Oceana secured an exclusive six-month option to acquire 100% of 207 mineral claims covering 104.4km2 of highly prospective ground in the James Bay lithium province in central Quebec. Collectively, these claims form the Monaro Lithium Project.
The Project is located in the western portion of the Duhesme Lake metavolcanic-sedimentary greenstone belt that can be traced about 40km along strike and 4-5km across.
The sequence is sandwiched between granitic intrusions (and/or granitic gneisses) and the contacts are traceable on a magnetic geophysical map. Monaro is located some 30km north of Winsome Resources’ Adina lithium project and approximately 100km east of Patriot Battery Metals’ Corvette lithium project.
The project area has historically been of interest for its gold potential and has never been systematically explored for lithium. Pegmatites of the Tilly pegmatite suite are injected into all older Archean units in the form of irregular sheets, dykes, and veins as indicated on the geological map.
Although the lithium significance of the Tilly pegmatite suite is not yet understood, one such pegmatite suite is mapped within the Monaro Project boundaries and is also mapped at the Adina project to the south. The post-tectonic Lariboisiere monzogranite and other leucogranites intrude the metavolcanics at the Lasalle et La Savonniere intrusions. These could be the potential “fertile” S-type host granites for pegmatites.
Historical Exploration
The Quebec government SIGÉOM database reports a lithium-bearing quartz diorite (Field Outcrop #2004 Unique-# 2013057342) sampled at Monaro in 2013 and assayed in 2016. It reported 154 ppm Li and 40 ppm Cs.
In the same position pegmatite was reported but not assayed. Some 500m to the west, SIGÉOM also identified a massive pink-white biotite-bearing pegmatite (Field Outcrop # 2003), which occupied the entire summit, but was also not assayed.
High resolution satellite imagery places this sample on top of a large prominent grey-white outcropping linear hill approximately 800m long, and within 200m of another linear red-grey-white outcrop approximately 290m long and 35m wide.
Over 30 similar large linear targets, some over 1km in length, with signs of outcrop or white boulders, have already been identified within the rest of the tenements, some related to magnetic highs and lineaments and some with positive uranium-high count radiometric anomalies.
Granitic intrusions in the area of the Monaro Project are generally characterised by a high magnetic signature. Brunswick Exploration’s Mirage project, where a large spodumene-bearing pegmatite boulder field has been discovered, lies 9km immediately to the east of Monaro.
