San Emidio Li Project

The San Emidio Li Project consists of 143 placer claims (approximately 3100 acres) in the San Emidio Desert, Washoe County, Nevada, 95 km northeast of Reno, the home of Tesla Corporation’s new lithium-ion battery Gigafactory.

On October 27th 2016, Nevada Energy Metals announced that highly encouraging results have been received from a sampling program designed to test for lithium values in surface soils and/or playa evaporates at the 100% owned San Emidio Desert Project. A total of 172 samples were collected with Lithium values ranging from 30.3 to a high of 600 ppm (30 mg/L to 600mg/L) with a median value of 215 ppm (215mg/L). Thirty-two samples were above 300 ppm (300mg/L) and 13 were over 400 ppm (400/mg/L).

Geochemical sample points were arranged on a grid pattern of seventeen east-west lines spaced 400 meters apart north-south, with stations every 200 meters along the lines. Samples were collected by a contract crew and transported to the ALS sample preparation lab in Elko, Nevada. Samples were screened to -80 mesh at the ALS prep lab in Reno, Nevada and analyzed by Aqua Regia leach mass spectrometry at the ALS laboratory in North Vancouver, B.C. Canada. QA/QC standards were inserted into the sample stream with one in twenty samples being a standard. All standards were within 3% of their accepted values.

The San Emidio Desert basin is an alkali playa environment underlain by unconsolidated sediments and clays being fed by lithium bearing geothermal fluids (US. Geothermal analyses) reported in bounding faults, and/or faults along the east side of the basin. Since mid-Tertiary, the rocks on the eastern edge of the San Emidio Desert have undergone extensive hydrothermal alteration and the presence of near-surface thermal fluids, suggest that the thermal fluids represent deep circulation of meteoric water (Moore, J.N., 1997).

The property adjoins the Empire geothermal power plant with production of 4.6 MW of electricity from a 155°C resource thereby providing a substantial heat source for the circulation of meteoric groundwater believed important in the formation of lithium brine deposits as found at Clayton Valley, Nevada host to North Americas preeminent lithium brine production. US Geothermal has reported anomalous lithium values in the trace element analysis of their geothermal brines at Empire (USGS-Report 87-4062).

Previous work by other operators exploring the playa have reported lithium value in sediments up to 312 ppm and the average of sampling being in the order of 250 ppm.