Type:
Research Report
Link:
https://www.geothermal-library.org/index.php?mode=pubs&action=view&record=1033848
Authors:
Catherine Hickson and Mark Coolbaugh
Citation:
Hickson, C.J., and Coolbaugh, M. Do geothermal systems play a role in lithium brine enrichment in Nevada playas? In Geothermal Resources Council, Transactions, Vol. 41, 16 p.
Abstract:
Exploration for economic deposits of lithium to be processed for use in batteries to power electric vehicles has become supercharged in the past three years. Numerous companies have entered the race to identify deposits and many are focused on potential brine deposits within the internally drained basins that make up the Basin and Range covering the western US and Nevada and Utah in particular. Only one operating lithium brine mine exists in the US, and it is found in Clayton Valley, Nevada. The question remains as to what other lithium brine deposits exist in the US. In general, lithium brine deposits are pre-request on a set of geological and climatological factors: 1) a source of lithium, 2) an extraction mechanism, 3) a transport mechanism, 4) a trap (closed basin), 5) a suitable solar evaporation rate, and 6) scale (mass flux of lithium and limited dissolved salt competition). Geothermal fluids may contribute to more efficient and selective extraction of lithium from basin sediments and basement rocks; they may help transport the enriched fluids due to thermal upwelling; and finally provide long term mass flux that over sufficient time leads to significant endowment in basins. The basins of western Nevada have many of these prerequisites, but are dominated by clastic sediments and have relatively high subsidence and sedimentation rates. For these reasons it is likely that lithium-enriched brines are deeper than in the mature basins of South America. Since few basins in Nevada have had deep drilling, paleo-brines may remain to be discovered at depths not yet investigated by exploration companies.
Acknowledgments:
The authors thank Dajin Resources Corp for making exploration data available for publication as well as the companies and contractors that helped in the collection and interpretation of data from Teels Marsh.
Keywords:
lithium, geothermal, brine, Nevada