Six new areas rich in high-purity lithium discovered in Canada

Six new areas with lithium bearing rock have been identified at the Jackpot property in northern Ontario, Canada, marking a major step forward in understanding the scale of the region’s lithium potential.

The targets cluster near an existing resource that can be mined by open pit, suggesting that future development could benefit from shared infrastructure and logistics.

The work was announced at a site about 87 miles northeast of Thunder Bay, where favorable geology and established transportation links make it one of Canada’s more accessible lithium prospects.

It adds fresh ground to Canada’s hunt for battery materials, reinforcing the country’s growing role in supplying critical minerals for electric vehicles and renewable energy storage.

Mapping Canada’s lithium

The new zones sit inside the Georgia Lake rare element district, where pegmatite, a very coarse grained granite that can host lithium minerals, is common in bands and swarms. The property spans forested ridges with ample road access and power nearby.

The work was led by P&E Mining Consultants Inc., a Canadian geology and engineering firm that prepared the project’s mineral resource estimate.

Its team focuses on mineral resource modeling and project evaluation, documented in a provincial record. 

The project carries an initial mineral resource estimated at about 3.4 million short tons indicated at 0.85 percent Li2O and 5.8 million short tons inferred at 0.91 percent Li2O, reported under Canada’s mineral disclosure rules for reporting scientific and technical information. 

Geologists place Jackpot within an established rare element field mapped by Ontario researchers. The Georgia Lake field has a long history of spodumene discoveries across multiple subzones.

Deciding what matters

A resource is defined using a cut off grade, the lowest grade considered worth including in the model. At Jackpot, that threshold is 0.30 percent Li2O for the open pit shells.

Grades are estimated from drill and surface data with inverse distance squared, a math method that gives more weight to samples closer to the point being estimated. It is straightforward and helps avoid overstating grade continuity when data are sparse.

Rock mass is converted to tonnage using bulk density, the mass per unit volume of the rock.

This value matters because even small density changes can shift total tonnage by thousands of tons, influencing both resource estimates and the economic feasibility of a mining project.

From rock to concentrate

At Jackpot the lithium mineral is spodumene, a lithium aluminum silicate that is the main hard rock source of battery grade chemicals. It occurs as pale green crystals within the pegmatite.

Bench testing shows the rock can upgrade to a 6 percent Li2O concentrate, with an assumed recovery of 81.5 percent used in the resource cut off assumptions on the company’s technical page. Heavy liquid separation and related steps are common in early test work.

In labs, heavy liquid separation, a trial that uses dense liquids to separate minerals by density, offers a quick read on whether simple gravity steps will work.

Industry guidance on hard rock processing explains why initial HLS results often guide dense media trials.

Plant scale operations often apply dense media separation, a process that floats or sinks crushed rock in a dense slurry, then adds flotation to clean the product. That combination tends to boost lithium recovery while keeping iron low.

Why this matters now

Battery demand dominates lithium use, with the U.S. Geological Survey’s 2025 summary estimating that about 87 percent of all lithium produced worldwide goes into batteries. 

Canada is pushing to shorten supply chains between mines, converters, and battery plants. A deposit near highways and a deep water port reduces trucking time and makes future offtake more flexible.

The Jackpot land package covers about 72.6 square miles, giving room to step out beyond the two modeled open pits. The six new surface targets add a runway for that work without straying far from roads.

Lessons from Canada’s lithium

Field teams plan more drilling to extend the modeled deposits and to test the new surface zones. Channel sampling and shallow stripping will help mark contacts and measure true widths before the next round of core.

Exploration moves carefully from surface clues to drill defined resources. Surface grab samples do not equal ore, and they need drilling, density, and metallurgical checks before a deposit grows.

The resource uses a conservative toolkit that can be updated as new data arrive. Better drill spacing, updated recovery tests, and refined pit shells often change tonnage and grade.

Environmental baseline work usually starts early to capture seasonal water and wildlife data. That step keeps options open if the project advances to permitting.

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