Esmeralda County, Nevada, USA
Large scale lithium claystone discovery currently under appraisal in 2026. Located along trend to 4 of the largest lithium deposits in the USA and 10 km from the country’s only operating lithium mine, Albemarle’s Silver Peak.
793
66 km2
The Alkali Flats project is located in the Esmeralda County, Nevada, USA approximately 15km south of the large scale Tonopah Flatsand TLC lithium projects and 10km east of Albemarle's Silver Peak Lithium Mine, the only operating lithium mine in the USA. Alkali Flats project contains the prolific Seibert Formation, the regional claystone host for lithium (Li) deposits, which contains in excess of 60 million tonnes ofreported lithium carbonate equivalent resources at several deposits in nearby third-party projects.
Fulcrum declared the discovery of it’s flagship lithium claystone deposit of significant scale, at shallow depths in September 2025, 10 months after the company’s IPO and following the successful completion of two drilling programs across the large project footprint.
Fulcrum’s early exploration efforts at Alkali Flats focussed on defining the basin geology and proving prospectivity for lithium mineralisation. Initial surface sampling across key Seibert Formation outcrops returned high-grade lithium assays up to 817ppm Li over significantly large aerial extents, despite minimal outcrop exposures across the basin.
The maiden drill program at Alkali Flats, completed in January 2025, drilled 14 reverse circulation (RC) holes to test the outcrop anomaly targets and proved the presence of a lithium mineralised basin within lacustrine clays, of similar nature to neighbouring projects. This first look at the basin geology allowed Fulcrum to build a robust geological model and vectors for targeting thicker, higher-grade targets.
Fulcrum followed up the encouraging Phase 1 drill results and tested the new basin geology concept with the Phase 2 drill program in June 2025. Fulcrum drilled 10 RC holes across the western flank of the project and discovered significant lithium mineralised claystones (>300ppm) intercepted in all 8 holes that penetrated the Siebert Formation.
The results from Phase 2 drilling at Alkali Flats presented the discovery of lithium mineralisation, over at least a 9 km2 area, displaying significant grade, thickness and lateral extent to justify further infill and extension drilling to work towards defining a future maiden JORC resource. Key highlights of the discovery are;
• Mineralisation zone thicknesses over 112m in AF2-2 and 67m in AF2-10.
• Highest grade mineralisation zones in the project to date with 10.7m at 904ppm Li in AF2-4 and 6.1m at 938ppm Li in AF2-10.
• Mineralisation remains open in all directions and open at depth in the deepest hole, AF2-2.
ASX Announcement, 24/09/2025: “Alkali Flats – Lithium Discovery”
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Phase 2 Drilling Results Cross Section
The Alkali Flats Project has successfully transitioned from exploration into the appraisal phase as Fulcrum’s work program focuses on appraising the size of the significant scale identified in Phase 2 drilling results and de-risking the project through targeted metallurgical testing and innovative trialling of processing technologies.
In 2025, Fulcrum successfully completed a Controlled-Source Audio-Frequency Magnetotelluric (CSAMT) geophysical survey of the discovery, to expand the exploration target significantly to over 42km2 of shallow targets, and the initial scoping metallurgical testing program which confirmed positive Lithium extraction results.
In 2026, Fulcrum will complete the Phase 3 drilling campaign to infill and extend the the Alkali Flats discovery and will provide the increased drill hole density and crucial information to enable Fulcrum’s maiden Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) following integration of all the geological, geophysical and engineering data.
ASX Announcement, 17/11/2025: “Geophysical Survey Results Expand Alkali Flats Lithium Claystone Target”
ASX Announcement, 25/11/2025: “Alkali Flats Initial Metallurgical Results”
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CSAMT Geophysical Survey Results
