Nov 9 2010
Lithium Americas Corp. (TSX:LAC), today announced an updated resource estimate of its Cauchari-Olaroz lithium–potassium property in Argentina.
An independent NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate has been completed under the supervision of Groundwater Insight Inc. from Nova Scotia, Canada, and will be included in an updated NI 43-101 report to be released within the next 45 days. The in situ resource estimate was made on the northern part of the Cauchari Salar and the southern end of the Olaroz Salar in an area of approximately 27km x 4km where Lithium Americas has the highest confidence of a continuous aquifer.
"The Cauchari-Olaroz resource is one of the largest, most advanced lithium brine projects in the world," stated Dr. Waldo Perez, Ph.D., P.Geo., President and CEO of Lithium Americas Corp. "With measured and indicated lithium carbonate and potash (KCl) resource equivalents of 5.3 million tonnes and 17.3 million tonnes respectively, we have validated the potential of our resource, achieving yet another important milestone in the development of this world class asset. Furthermore, we remain on track to completing our Preliminary Economic Assessment as scheduled in the first quarter of 2011," stated Perez.
Lithium Americas original 43-101 compliant technical report, filed in February 2010, showed an inferred resource estimate of 1.60x109 m3 at 580 mg/L lithium, equivalent to 4.9 million tonnes of lithium carbonate. The updated in situ lithium and potassium resource estimate, which was derived using data from an extensive exploration drilling program. All resources are reported at 500 mg/L lithium cut-off.
The resource was estimated using accepted, industry-standard methods that conform with National Instrument 43-101. Results were estimated with a block model developed using ordinary kriging techniques. The blocks were 300m x 300m x 10m (x,y,z). The measured resources were estimated with a kriging variance of <0.25 and a minimum number of 3 holes, the indicated resources with a kriging variance of 0.25-0.5 and a minimum number of 2 holes and the inferred resources with a kriging variance of > 0.5 and a minimum number of 1 hole. The sample size interval is 1 meter; the total number of holes used in the resource estimation was 20, located at an average distance of about 1.6km from each other. The total number of brine samples used was 2,337 (including 776 QA/QC samples). The geology model was assembled with over 18 diamond drill holes and 832 relative brine release capacity measurements that allowed the Company to distinguish 5 distinctive hydrostratigraphic units.
The mineral resource estimate above has been prepared by Mining Engineer and Geostatistician Danilo Castillo from Maptek Sudamerica using Vulcan 8.0.3 software under the review of Mark King, Ph.D., P. Geo., of Groundwater Insight Inc., a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101. Dr. King has read and approved the contents of this release. John Kieley, P.Geo., is the internal Qualified Person for the Cauchari-Olaroz lithium project in accordance with NI 43-101. Mr. Kieley has read and approved the contents of this news release.