Noram’s Clayton Valley claims offer two deposit types that are potential objects of exploration efforts. Type one is the most obvious, which involves drilling for brines in the deep basin like those being extracted by Albemarle at their operations at Silver Peak. The lithium brine potential of Noram’s claims has not been investigated to date, and it is not known whether brines exist in the sediments beneath Noram’s Zeus claims.

The second deposit type involves the production of lithium from playa lakebed sediments that have been raised to surface or near surface through block faulting. This process requires the development of new lithium extraction processes currently being investigated. Such processes are being tested by competitor companies and Noram has conducted initial testing on bulk samples from its Zeus claims. The processes being tested would extract lithium directly from lithium-rich mudstones and claystone, which occur at the surface over large portions of the Zeus claim group.

The targeted mineralization investigated by Noram occurs at or near the surface in the form of sedimentary layers enhanced in lithium to the extent that the lithium appears to be extractable from them economically, although this has not yet been demonstrated through in-depth economic analysis for the Zeus project.

The targeted layers occur at surface primarily as olive green, interbedded tuffaceous mudstones, and claystone. The beds are nearly always calcareous and most often salty. The weathered mudstones are usually poorly consolidated, whereas the thin claystone beds can be well consolidated and commonly form chert nodules. The units contain sandy beds locally.

The units occur as lakebed sediments that have been mapped (Albers & Stewart, 1972; Davis, 1981) as Miocene or Pliocene Esmeralda Formation. Algal mats and digitate algal features have been noted locally, but these are generally not well preserved. The beds are gently dipping, usually to the northwest, but with local undulations. These units have been shown by Kunasz (1970) to be the probable source of lithium for the basin brines. The deposit that is the subject of this report is part of a section of ancient lakebed sediments that was raised above the current Clayton Valley playa by Basin and Range faulting, which is present throughout the region.

The Esmeralda area is made up of fine grained sedimentary and tuffaceous units which generally dip to the northwest. The strike and dip can be quite varied locally but on average most of the sediments dip at less than 5°. Some bedding undulations were noted, possibly caused by differential compaction or local faulting.

Faulting was also noted in some zones, mostly in the northern regions of the claims. The faults appear to trend at N30°E to N45°E, approximately parallel to the edge of the playa in this part of the Clayton Valley. Faulting is difficult to trace on the surface due to the homogeneity and semi- consolidated nature of the sediments and was only possible to identify in select areas of the property. In addition to ancient faulting, recent faults are evident around the basin that have formed as a result of pumping brines from the aquifers over the past 50+ years to produce lithium.

In the areas of the claim block where the Esmeralda Formation outcrops, the resulting topographic configuration consists of long rounded “ridges” of Esmeralda separated by gravel filled washes. These ridges are generally 50 feet (15 meters) to 100 feet (30 meters) wide and have lengths of a few hundred to a few thousand feet, trending northwest. These geomorphic features have been described by Davis (1981) and Kunasz (1947) as a “badlands” type topography.

The thickness of the Esmeralda Foundation has not been absolutely determined since the base of the formation was not seen in any of the washes and was not found in any drilling to date. Davis (1981) measured this section at approximately 328 feet (100 meters) thick and Kunasz (1974 described it as being approximately 350 feet (107 meters) thick. The ridges are topped with weathered remnants of rock washed down from the surrounding mountainous areas; a weathering phenomenon typical of the desert terranes and sometimes called “desert pavement”. In the southeastern portion of the claim block, the quaternary outwash gravel shed from the Clayton Ridge thickens toward the southeast and was found to be more than 100 meters thick in two drill holes.

Within approximately 200 feet (60 meters) of surface, the main area of interest on the Zeus claims is mostly soft and crumbly siltstones, mudstones and claystones, containing several thin beds of harder, more consolidated sediments. Most of these mudstones and claystone are olive green, gray or tan. Most beds were tuffaceous, as evidenced by fine crystal shards. Nearly all the sediments are calcareous, indicating a lakebed deposition. Below 200 feet (60 meters), the sediments become more consolidated but are still relatively soft compared to most sedimentary rocks.

A traditional truck and shovel operation is selected as the base case mining method. No drilling and blasting is anticipated to be required for this operation.

A conventional truck and shovel operation will be used by pairing a 6020B (12 m3) hydraulic excavator with four 90 tonnes class haul trucks. The hydraulic excavator will be capable of free digging the claystone without blasting or ripping with a dozer. A D8 class dozer will be sufficient to support the excavator. This option has been selected based on the lowest total capital costs.

An ultimate pit of processable material will be created, consuming most of the property area. The ultimate pit has been divided into phases of which the first 11 contain enough resources for 40 years of production at a 17,000 tpd production rate. Resources contained within the entire ultimate pit limits provide enough ore for over 190 years of production at 17,000 tpd.

Phase 1 contains enough resources for approximately 7 years of production while subsequent phases contain resources for 4-5 years of production each, both at a production rate of 17,000 tpd. Phase 1 is estimated to have an average ROM grade of 1,126 ppm lithium while the total Phase 1 to Phase 11 average ROM grade is expected to be 1,093 ppm lithium.

Due to the low stripping ratio in the first 3 phases, pre-stripping is not expected. For all the phases, waste is scheduled to be mined over the same period as the processed material.

A conceptual Zeus Lithium project site layout includes initial pit contours, waste storage area, tailing locations, low-grade ore stockpile location, and site facilities. Site facilities will include all general infrastructure and ore processing facilities.

Processable ore above the 850 ppm optimized cut-off grade will be sent to the site facilities location for processing. All ore between the economic cut-off grade of 400 ppm and 850 ppm will be transported to the low-grade stockpile. Waste material below 400 ppm will be stored in the waste storage facility.

A constant overall pit slope of 30° is used. It is expected that the maximum road grade of inpit ramps does not exceed a 10% grade. A complete pit slope analysis is required to determine the required slope in localized areas and the overall project slope stability.

Access roads expected to accommodate proposed production fleet are to be designed for two-way traffic with a running surface width of 19.5 m. A total road surface measuring 28.0 m will be required to accommodate berms and ditches. Maximum road gradient of these roads is 8%.

Tailing areas, low grade stockpiles, and waste storage area are expected to maintain an interim slope of 3H:1V with overall slopes of 3.5H:1V to accommodate for ramps and berms. A 25% swell and 10% compaction factor were used for the expected waste and low-grade stockpile material placement volumes. Two separate tailings areas: initial and secondary are available. The initial tailings area will be used in the early stages of the mine life due to its proximity to the site facilities. Transitioning from the initial to secondary tailings area will begin as capacity in the primary tailings area is reached.

Mine to ROM stockpile
Run of mine feed would be dumped into a ROM stockpile. A loader will feed a static grizzly (300 mm) from the ROM stockpile. Grizzly oversized rejects will be broken using a mobile rock breaker. A series of jump- and mainline- mobile conveyors will transport the grizzly undersize from the mine pit face to the ROM stockpile near the processing plant. Stockpile will have a live capacity of 25,000 tonnes.

Feed Preparation
A comminution/repulping circuit and a slurry transfer system are the two main components designed for the feed preparation circuit. The objective is to utilize a semi-mobile system that allows ROM material to be processed in the active mining area and then pumped to the processing facilities.

A linear reclaimer will be used to feed the material from the ROM stockpile to the plant, where it will be discharged into a two-way splitter. The material will be passed through a pair of roll crushers with 125-mm openings and stored in two 400-tonne fine ore bins. Using variable speed conveyors, material from the bins will be fed into stainless steel rotary attritors where the clay will disaggregate and reclaim water. Slurry from the attritor is discharged on to a scalping screen. The oversize material is removed using the scalping screen and sent to the waste pile. Undersize slurry from the attritor is fed into feed tanks where additional water is added to adjust the percent solids in the slurry.

The process plant is based on a daily throughput of 17,000 tonnes per day or 6.2 million tonnes per year, averaging 1,093 ppm lithium. The anticipated lithium recovery is 89% and expected to produce 5,971 tonnes per year of lithium. The design process consists of basic operations including feed preparation; sulfuric acid leaching; filtration; lithium recovery; lithium carbonate production; tailings and utilities – sulfuric acid production, process water recycling, and reagents addition.

The plant will operate continuously with two 12 hour shifts per day, 365 days per year. The plant availability for feed preparation and lithium production plant is 92%.

The ore from the mine will be sized, screened, and transported to the leaching circuit. With the help of sulfuric acid in the leaching circuit, lithium is attacked and liberated from the clay. The slurry from the leaching circuit will be filtered and the lithium bearing solution will be sent for neutralization. Th ........