Execution Of Field Programs At Three Utah Beryllium Projects

UTAH – Rockland Resources Ltd. reported successful execution of field programs at its three Utah beryllium projects located in Juab County Utah. Geologists and geotechnical support visited the Claybank, Beryllium Butte and Meteor properties located within the Spor Mountain (Claybank), Honeycomb Hills (Beryllium Butte), and Trout Creek (Meteor) areas, part of the ‘Beryllium Belt’.
Claybank is only five kilometres east of Materion’s beryllium mines at Spor Mountain and connected by a paved road leading to their processing facility, Claybank is the most strategically positioned of the Rockland properties. A total of 31 samples were collected from historic stockpiles of altered volcanic tuff breccia believed to be the same unit mined at Spor Mountain. In 2014, twenty of the stockpiles were analyzed by Materion using a lab-based berylometer, with results showing a range from 770-3,216 ppm Be with a weighted average of 1,741 ppm Be. (Spor Mountain ore is presently mined at an average grade  of 2,460 ppm Be). The present sampling was conducted 15-25cm below the surface of each stockpile to ensure that fresh material was collected. There are no historical data to correlate the stockpiles with specific outcrops of the mineralized tuff at Claybank, but sampling was also carried out on the outcrops to provide some correlation. Based on in-house calculations, roughly 50 tons of material are represented by the stockpiles.
Mineralization at Claybank is constrained to an altered rhyolite tuff breccia positioned against a slump block of dolomite breccia and above a welded red rhyolite tuff. This geological arrangement is believed to have constrained the hydrothermal fluids that generated bertrandite within the tuff unit.
The Company reported insight into the areas of Be-enriched ore to be expected with further drilling and sampling at Claybank. The claimholder possessed two samples enriched in bertrandite (the primary ore mineral at the Spor Mountain Mine). As documented historically, purple fluorite is the primary gangue mineral associated with a brown anhedral mineral believed to be bertrandite, the primary Be ore that is mined at Spor Mountain. (The Company cannot confirm that the samples are derived from Claybank, and no assays are available.)
Initially referred to as Lithium Butte, Beryllium Butte is in the Honeycomb Hills located 50km west of the Spor Mountain Mine along a well-maintained gravel road. Grab samples collected in 2022 returned highs of 4,810, 4,290, and 1,790 ppm Be from an altered rhyolite tuff breccia. Follow-up channel sampling along strike averaged 1,142 ppm Be over 25.5m, with a higher-grade portion returning 2,423 ppm Be over 6.13m. The Saddle Zone was revisited in the recent program, with eight samples collected across the tuff breccia width and along strike to better define the extent of Be-enriched material.
Located 70km west of the Materion pits along a well-maintained gravel road, Meteor is the latest addition to the Rockland beryllium portfolio. Staked in late winter, this property includes historic mines and prospects focused on tungsten with beryl also reported in zoned pegmatites. Most of the world occurrences of beryl are in zoned pegmatites, with larger crystals near the center and smaller crystals at the margins. It also preferentially occurs with tungsten (as scheelite). For these reasons the Meteor claims were acquired, and the objective of this visit was to identify scheelite and beryl mineralization within pegmatites. Large samples of zoned pegmatite were retrieved and hand-cobbed, and possible beryl crystals will be tested for the presence of beryllium using the in-house LIBS analyzer before sending the crushed material for analysis.
President, Will Rascan, said, “We are excited to have completed visits to all three of our critical mineral projects. The visits focused on strategic sampling to support prior results and to flesh out the extent of known mineralization. We have drill permitting in place for Beryllium Butte and have submitted paperwork for drilling at Claybank with the state of Utah. We have the right rocks in the right place and are excited to advance all three projects with our exceptional beryllium team.”