The Separation Rapids Lithium Deposit (SRLD) is underlain predominantly by a mafic metavolcanic sequence, consisting of flows, tuffs, subordinate epiclastic metasediments and rare iron formation horizons and rhyolites.

The drill tested portion is about 750 m in strike length, of which about 300 m is considerably thicker and thus contains the bulk of the presently defined mineral resource. The further continuation of the pegmatite 450 m to the west is thinner and has a few shallow drill holes. This thin portion, drilled in the past, has been informally referred to as Bob’s Pegmatite.

There is yet further extension of the thinner pegmatite in sparse outcrops to the west for approximately 400 m, referred to normally as the “Western Pegmatite”.

The thickest part of the SRLD, historically referred to as the Big Whopper Pegmatite, forms a large lens-shaped body approximately 400 m long and approximately 70 m at its widest part.

The SRLD narrows to less than 20 m at both its eastern and western ends, and extends along strike in both directions for at least 300 m in the form of relatively narrow tails up to 10 to 15 m wide. Smaller, subparallel, 1 m to 10 m wide, petalite-bearing pegmatite bodies predominantly occur to the northeast, north and northwest of the main SRLD body, with minor occurrences on the southern flank.

The narrower west-southwest-striking zone of petalite pegmatites extends from the main SRLD for a distance of approximately 750 m to the west and is exposed in four outcrops, namely the Great White North, Bob’s, Swamp and West pegmatites.

Avalon has further subdivided the SRLD into three sub-zones, namely the Separation Rapids Pegmatite, Western Pegmatite and Eastern Swarm. Based on lithological, mineralogical and textural variations, the Separation Rapids Pegmatite itself has been subdivided into five distinct lithological units and subunits, 3a, 3b, 4, 5 and 6, that outcrop as irregular dykes and larger irregular to elliptical bodies intruding the amphibolite and granites.

The main SRLD is flanked by a swarm of narrower petalite-bearing, highly feldspathic pegmatites, albitite and albite-potassium feldspar zones, subunits, 3a and 3b. These two subunits make up a significant portion of the northwestern part of the SRLD. Subunit 3a occurs as discrete, strongly foliated aplitic zones proximal to the SRLD and internally as endocontact border zones proximal to the amphibolite. Subunit 3b occurs as medium- grained, potassium feldspar-rich megacrystic dykes, which are somewhat similar to the Subunit 3a dykes and also occur within the same portions of the northwestern SRLD.

The potassium feldspar-rich zone lithology that constitutes Unit 4 is confined, on surface, to the northwestern and southwestern peripheral zones and two narrow, 20 m to 30 m long zones on the southern margin of the main zone.

Unit 5 occurs as irregular zones commonly associated and interbanded with Unit 4 in the northern and northwestern zone peripheral to the main SRLD. The Unit 5 zones tend to be less than 20 m in length (except for one larger, 60- m long zone on the northwestern flank). At depth, Unit 5 is intersected in drill core, on sections 250 W, 300 W and in sections 450 W 500 W and 550 W in the “Flame Structure”. In total, Unit 5 constitutes 17% of the feldspathic units in the SRLD.

Within the intermediate zone of the Separation Rapids Pegmatite the predominant lithology is the petalite-bearing Unit 6. Avalon has subdivided this unit into four textural and compositional subunits: 6a, 6b and 6c form the bulk of the petalite pegmatite.

Discontinuous albitic dykes, commonly with petalite cores, occur in boudinaged, pinch- andswell swarms proximal to the northern contact of the SRLD and the Western Pegmatite. Most are narrow and less than 1 m wide, with exceptions reaching 12 to 15 m in width and 150 m in length, including a lepidolite-rich dyke encountered in diamond drilling, and referred to as the Lepidolite Dyke.

Pegmatitic granite dykes and larger elliptical intrusions related to the Separation Rapids Pluton outcrop at several locations on the property. These rocks (Unit 7) consist predominantly of white rubidium-rich potassium feldspar, with subordinate amounts of albite, green lithian muscovite, quartz, accessory garnet (spessartine), cassiterite, apatite, tantalum oxides and granite.

Geological mapping and diamond drilling show that the SRLD system has a strike length of over 1.5 km, and widths ranging from 10 to 70 m. To date, the SRLD has been intersected by drilling to a vertical depth of almost 275 m. The petalite-bearing pegmatite zones show little variation in true width between surface outcrop, up to 70 m, and up to 45 m for near- surface and the deepest intersected levels. These petalite zones are open to depth.

The central portion of the SRLD is a low, dome- shaped hill, formed by the well-exposed main mineralized zone. It has a strike length of 600 m with a drill-tested vertical depth of at least 250 m. It forms the widest portion of the SRLD, averaging 55 m over a 300 m strike length.

Surface geological mapping and diamond drilling carried out by Avalon between lines 550W and 700W show that the Western Pegmatite is the western continuation of the Separation Rapids Pegmatite, with the width narrowing significantly to 10 m and less.

A conceptual pit design was conducted from the bottom up using the design parameters and the optimum pit shell 15 as a template. The bench to bench face angle of 80 degrees, with a 10 m bench and a 6 m wide safety berm was applied every 20 m. A haul road width of 15 m was used from the pit base (75 level) to the surface, on the assumption that two-way traffic would be operating in the whole of the mine.

The proposed method of mining is by conventional open pit methods using drilling and blasting, loading with excavators and shovels and hauling with rigid dump trucks. The mineral will be excavated by hydraulic excavator to allow selectivity in ore and waste areas. A dedicated front-end loader, Caterpillar 992 or equivalent, will also assist in excavating high outputs of waste.

The deposit is near surface and suitable for conventional truck and shovel open pit mining. The topsoil and any sensitive material will be removed and stockpiled in a specific site. This material will be used in the rehabilitation of mine site at the end of operations. Waste from the pit will initially be composed of overburden and will be dumped near the topsoil stockpile. As the pit is developed harder waste rock will be excavated and will be stored on a separate waste dump.

There will be a requirement for a low and high- grade ore stockpiles to be positioned adjacent to the primary crusher.

Crushing and Sorting of Mineralized Material
This circuit will process both LPZ and PZ mineralization separately on a campaign basis. Run-of-mine (ROM) mineralized material is fed to multi-stage crushing and optical sorting before proceeding to the comminution circuit. The circuit is designed to process 200 t/h of material to facilitate a single, 12 h/day operating cycle and to also facilitate a possible future expansion of production capacity.

ROM mineralized material is delivered to a stockpile at the plant by truck. A front-end loader then reclaims the material and feeds it into a bin equipped with a 400 mm square static grizzly. From this bin it is fed at a rate of 200 t/h by a vibrating grizzly feeder, the oversize of which (+150 mm) feeds a jaw crusher. Crusher product is mixed with the feeder undersize and conveyed to a vibrating screen. The oversize (+50 mm) of this screen is fed to a secondary cone crusher with crusher product being combined with the screen undersize which then feeds a second vibrating screen. The second screen separates the mineralized material into three size fractions, these are:
• +25 mm: This material is fed by conveyor to an optical sorter where waste rock (mainly amphibolite) is rejected onto a conveyor and transported to a stockpile from which it is then transferred by truck to the main waste stockpile. The non-waste rock is fed by conveyor to a tertiary cone crusher.
• -25 +8 mm: This material is fed to a second optical sorter. Waste rejects are combined on the same waste conveyor as that for the first sorter, non-waste rock is combined with that of the first sorter non-waste and sent to the tertiary crusher.
• -8 mm: This material is transported by conveyor to a crushed mineralized material storage silo sized to hold 24 hours of crusher product.

The amount of material rejected by the sorter has been estimated at 1.8% of crusher plant feed (as measured in a 30-t bulk sample processed in Germany).

Tertiary crusher product is combined with the product from the secondary cone crusher and recycled to the second of the vibrating screens.

This PEA is based on the processing of 475,000 t/y of mineralized material over a 19-year mine life to produce approximately 220,000 t of lepidolite concentrate, 1.32 Mt of petalite and 1.34 Mt of feldspar.

The grinding and classification circuit consists of a ball mill operating in closed circuit with a wet classification screening process, followed by a two-stage magnetic separation process, attrition scrubbers and a cluster of desliming cyclones.

The petalite flotation circuit consists of rougher and rougher scavenger flotation and five stages of cleaner flotation.

The petalite cleaner flotation circuit consists of five cleaner flotation stages and a belt filter for dewatering the cleaner 2 petalite concentrate ahead of cleaner 3. The petalite rougher concentrate is fed to two stages of conditioning where additional brine and flotation reagents are added. The conditioned feed is then fed into the first stage of petalite cleaners. Primary petalite cl ........