The Red Dirt Metals Ltd (ASX: RDT) share price is soaring today following strong assay results at the Mt Ida Project in Western Australia.
At the time of writing, the mining exploration company's shares are up 10.45% to 74 cents.
However, the Red Dirt share price reached an intraday high of 84 cents shortly after the market open and this was a dramatic 25% jump on yesterday's closing price of 67 cents.
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What are the results?
Red Dirt reported assay results for a drill hole that had been previously drilled by La Mancha Resources in 2006.
Surprisingly, the pegmatite interval was never cut or analysed until being submitted for analysis by Red Dirt. Lithium bearing minerals were identified in the drill core, which led to samples being taken.
As such, the assay results confirmed the high-grade potential for lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) bearing pegmatites.
Red Dirt highlighted the following:
- 21.7 metres at 2.11% of lithium oxide
- 302 parts per million (ppm) of Tantalum pentoxide
- 0.49% of iron oxide from 250.7 metres.
One ppm is equivalent to 1 milligram of a chemical or contaminate per litre of water (mg/l) or 1 milligram.
A drilling campaign is now underway at Mt Ida. targeting 25,000 metres of reverse circulation (RC) and 7,000 metres of diamond drilling.
Diamond drilling is a more efficient way of achieving precise sampling and analysis. RC drilling is used for extracting bulk samples. RC drilling is faster but diamond drilling delivers more accuracy in the results.
Red Dirt CEO Matthew Boyes commented:
These assay results confirm the potential the Mt Ida system has of hosting very high-grade lithium-caesium-tantalum (LCT) bearing pegmatites in a system that's relatively unexplored to date for this style of mineralisation.
Walk up drill targets under existing known pegmatite outcrops will be initially focused on in the run into Christmas and will help our team build up a better understanding of the structural controls and orientation of these pegmatitic bodies.
About the Red Dirt share price
Over the past 12 months, Red Dirt shares have accelerated by 198%. A sharp rise began in September 2021.
Red Dirt commands a market capitalisation of about 97 million, with approximately 145 million shares outstanding.
