High-grade lithium resource uncovered at McDermitt Caldera

As the demand for lithium-ion batteries increases worldwide, mining companies and researchers are rushing to identify additional lithium resources. New Zealand and international researchers have found that a newly characterised type of lithium deposit in the McDermitt caldera, an extinct supervolcano at Thacker Pass in Nevada, USA, contains extremely high concentrations of lithium - more than double that of other claystone lithium resources around the world. Authors of the study say this could place the site among the largest known lithium reserves in the world, and that the uniquely dense lithium enrichment of the sediment is a result of previously unidentified hydrothermal processes.

New research suggests that a newly characterized type of lithium deposit, found in volcanic lake sediments from McDermitt Caldera at Thacker Pass in northern Nevada, could place the site among the largest known lithium reserves in the world. Thomas Benson and colleagues report that sediments bearing the clay mineral illite may contain more than double the concentration of lithium compared with smectite-bearing clay, which is more abundant at the site. To meet growing demand for lithium-ion batteries as the energy and transportation sectors decarbonize, mining companies and researchers are rushing to identify additional lithium resources.

Thacker Pass is a lithium mining project in northern Nevada, known for the resistance developers faced from Indigenous and environmental groups before ultimately being approved to proceed earlier in 2023. The mine is situated at the southern portion of McDermitt Caldera, where claystone lake sediments of volcanic origin, bearing clay minerals such as smectite and illite, have been enriched with lithium. Research suggests that lithium enrichment occurred during and after the caldera’s formation around 16.4 to 16.1 million years ago. However, the details of this process and the properties of different sedimentary layers at the site are still under investigation. Here, Benson et al. examined smectite and illite claystone lake sediments from three drill core samples recovered from the southern portion of McDermitt Caldera using a sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe (SHRIMP-RG). Illite-bearing sediments, most prominent around faults, appeared as though they had been transformed from smectite to illite during resurgence after the caldera’s initial collapse. Lithium concentrations in these sediments were more than double those found in smectite sediments elsewhere in the caldera and at other lithium sites globally. “Caldera systems with similar high-temperature, hydrothermally altered [lake] sediments associated with intracaldera magmatic resurgence are therefore likely to serve as the best exploration targets to help meet increasing [lithium] demand,” the authors conclude

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