Matsa Resources Limited announce it has Discovered two new lithium provinces hosting widespread lithium bearing pegmatite outcrops and Float at Kanchanaburi and Ratchaburi in western Thailand. Extensive lithium bearing discoveries cover an area of approximately 6km strike by 1km wide at Kanchanaburi and 2km long by 0.5km wide at Ratchaburi. These discoveries build on Matsa's recently announced lepidolite discovery in the Phang Nga province some 600km to the south 1. Matsa is now arguably one of the larger holders of tenure, prospective for lithium in south-east Asia and with these new discoveries, Matsa has an impressive pipeline of lithium projects.

These discoveries are highly significant, in that it opens up new lithium provinces at Kanchanaburi and Ratchaburi where lithium bearing pegmatites have not previously been recorded, in contrast to the Phang Nga province, where the British Geological Survey mapped known lithium bearing pegmatites at Reung Kiet, Khata Tong and Bang I Tun in the 1970s. The Kanchanaburi project comprising 4 SPLAs covering 62.5km have been lodged and accepted by the Thailand government and is characterised by widespread occurrences of both coarse grained lepidolite and polylithionite pegmatitic outcrop and float. In Ratchaburi, 2 SPLAs have been lodged and accepted by the Thailand government where Matsa has identified fine grained polylithionite bearing pegmatites.

The lithium mica polylithionite has been confirmed via XRD work by Thailand's Department of Mineral Resources on Matsa samples. Matsa's SPLAs for lithium in Western Thailand now covers a total of 1,160km. Matsa has some 500 stream sediment and whole rock samples awaiting detailed multi-element and quantitative mineralogical assessment at commercial laboratories in Perth, Western Australia.

The results for the bulk of these samples are expected shortly. The assay results from Rose Panther (Phang Nga province) returned an average Li2O result above 2% lithium oxide, which is considered an excellent result for whole rock sampling and assay. Some detailed mineralogical assessment is still underway to fully characterise the mineral suite associated with the Rose Panther prospect.

The discoveries follow field work which investigated reported pegmatites and rare earth potential recorded in historical literature within the Kanchanaburi area, where moderate lithium anomalism was noted. The project is also host to the historical Cha Rin tin mine exploited in the 1970s. Composition and properties of lepidolite and polylithionite Lepidolite is a member of the polylithionite-trilithionite series3, and has a chemical composition that ranges in a solid solution series from that of polylithionite KLi2Al(Si4O10)(F,OH)2 to that of trilithionite K(Li1.5Al1.5)(AlSi3O10)(F,OH)2. This compositional range of lithium mica is known as the lepidolite series.

Lepidolite is the major source of the alkali metal rubidium and a source of lithium. Kanchanaburi and Ratchaburi field programs Matsa's exploration work has involved inspection of the geology/outcrop referenced in historical literature, particularly those areas associated with past mining and or access tracks to farmland. Whilst initially the field work focussed on developing a potassium to rubidium ratio map for the area to understand the region's fertility for lithium, upon recognition of lepidolite the exploration focus changed to finding and sampling pegmatite outcrop and float.

To date 48 samples have been collected over an area of approximately 7km by 700m. The limited outcrop suggests the exploration search space remains wide and open to the north, south and east, however it is thought there is likely to be limited exploration potential to the west with the geology sequence being dominated by granite. Polylithionite was discovered following field investigations of reported anomalous lithium in a micaceous field.

The lithium results were part of a wider 2012 study into rare earth element potential in the Kanchanaburi province.