Mr. Jack Stoch reports

GLOBEX OPTIONS VIRGIN MOUNTAIN RARE EARTH & BERYLLIUM PROJECT IN ARIZONA

Globex Mining Enterprises Inc. has optioned its Virgin Mountain rare earth property located in Mohave county, northwestern Arizona, to Arizona Mountain Pass Heavy Rare Earths Pty. Ltd., an Australia exploration company.

The deal

Under the agreement with Arizona Mountain Pass, Globex will receive $800,000 in cash payments and $600,000 in shares over a 42-month period in exchange for a 100-per-cent interest in the property subject to:

1. A 3-per-cent gross metal/mineral royalty subject to a 1-per-cent GMR buydown for $1-million (U.S.) adjusted annually based on the U.S. Consumer Price Index from the effective date;
2. Commencing on the seventh anniversary of the effective date, until commercial production, an annual advance royalty of $100,000 (U.S.) recoupable from first production;
3. $2.5-million (Canadian) of exploration expenditures;
4. Within a 10-mile radius from the current claim boundaries, any mining claims, leases, permits or other mineral interests acquired by or on behalf of Arizona Mountain Pass shall be deemed to form part of the property, and shall be subject to the terms and conditions of the agreement.

History

The Virgin Mountain rare earth and beryllium property consists of 23 unpatented lode claims totalling 192.28 hectares (475.1 acres) located in the Arizona portion of the Virgin Mountain range, about 120 kilometres northeast of Las Vegas, Nev. It is easily accessible from Las Vegas by Highway 15 toward the northeast until the village of Mesquite, Nev. From here, a 16-kilometre-long gravel road leads to the project area.

Past exploration activities for uranium and later for rare earth elements were initiated in the 1940s and ended in 1991. Numerous small exploration pits, one collapsed adit, two collapsed shafts and a number of old access roads resulted from these exploration efforts. During that time, several companies conducted exploration work, including American Smelting and Refining Company, which sank a 25-metre-deep shaft, and finally, the Blandsell Mining Company, abandoning the area in 1991. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Virgin Mountains beryllium-bearing pegmatites had been explored intensely for beryllium but never came into production (source: U.S. government files).

Geology and new work undertaken by Globex

Globex compiled historical work, carried out prospecting and geological mapping, and collected a total of 25 rock samples for analysis.

The Virgin Mountains represent a northeast-trending range, consisting of a core of Precambrian (1.7 billion to 1.8 billion years) metamorphic and intrusive rocks, flanked by Paleozoic to Cenozoic sedimentary rocks. Rocks occurring in, or in the vicinity to, the property area include felsic migmatite, ortho and paragneiss, basic and ultrabasic metamorphics, schist, and pegmatites. Metaigneous and metasedimentary rocks exhibit intense shear deformation and evidence of high-temperature/high-pressure and possibly ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism.

Rare earth plus or minus uranium and thorium mineralization is hosted in migmate-gneiss and interlayered thin schist layers, locally also in pegmatite dikes. Beryllium plus or minus niobium and tantalum mineralization is hosted exclusively in pegmatite dikes unrelated to the rare earth element mineralization.

REE mineralization is always associated to anomalous or elevated radioactivity, and principal ore minerals are the phosphate minerals xenotime and monazite. Within the project area, numerous linear REE target zones had been defined.

The principal REE mineralization, named herein the Hummingbird zone, could be followed up over a distance of 250 m. It is contained in steeply dipping parallel and en echelon mineralized zones along a 30- to 40-metre-wide corridor trending in average 65 degrees northeast. Strong faulting, shearing and brecciation can be observed in some of the mineralized structures, mostly concordant to foliation of the metamorphic wall rock, chiefly felsic migmatite-gneiss. Globex confirmed minimum high-grade widths (with assays) between 0.9 m and at least 1.45 m; however, widths of radioactive anomalies related to REE mineralization may approach five- to over 10-metre width (full widths not yet sampled). Globex collected seven channel samples from outcrops of this principal REE structural trend. The Hummingbird zone is open to the east (300-metre additional length possible), where it is concealed by rather shallow fluvial sand and gravel. Lateral extension for about 300 m to the west is possible as well, where most of the structure is hidden under shallow overburden and slope scree.

All seven channel samples collected from the Hummingbird structure returned high grades of light (LREE) and heavy (HREE) rare earth elements plus or minus thorium and uranium. Total rare earth oxide contents (TREO) vary between 0.328 per cent and 1.24 per cent. Uranium could represent a byproduct of the REE mineralization. Higher grades below the oxidation level can be expected.

The Hummingbird zone stands out with enrichment of the (more valuable) heavy rare earth elements against most other worldwide REE deposits/occurrences (except the similar Wolverine deposit in Australia). These elements include the high-value HREE gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, holmium, erbium and lutetium (and even thulium). Furthermore, mineralization contains abundant yttrium (lower value), ytterbium and the valuable LREE neodymium. Terbium is the most valuable HREE. Assays returned up to 96 g/t (0.01 per cent) Tb2O3.

The deposit type of the HREE-dominated mineralization at the Hummingbird zone, Virgin Mountain project, is not yet well understood, and could however represent a combination of premetamorphic enrichment in protolith rocks and hydrothermal processes.

Pegmatites, up to six metres thick, highly enriched in beryllium, occur within the Globex claim block over a strike length of about 2.5 kilometres. Be pegmatites are composed of feldspar (microcline, albite and plagioclase), muscovite, locally garnet, in places minor tourmaline, beryl and/or chrysoberyl. In addition to beryllium, these pegmatites carry locally also minor amounts of the critical metals niobium and tantalum. In the 1950s and 1960s, BeO grades had been analyzed from 135 rock samples (bulk, channel and grab), and grades ranged widely between 0.02 per cent and 2.98 per cent, corresponding to Be values between 0.072 and 10.736 kilograms per tonne. Globex collected four samples from these pegmatites. They returned between 0.325 and 7.577 kg/t beryllium.

Assay results of chrysoberyl-bearing pegmatite dikes

In contrast to most other beryllium-bearing pegmatites in the world, the dominant Be mineral in the Virgin Mountain pegmatites is chrysoberyl. Chrysoberyl (formula: BeAl2O4) occurs mostly as subhedral to euhedral tabular yellowish-green crystals up to three centimetres in size. Chrysoberyl contains 7.1 per cent Be (against 5.03 per cent Be in beryl). The average density of chrysoberyl is 3.67 grams per cubic centimetre (in contrast to beryl with 2.76 grams per cubic centimetre). Consequently, it is possible to concentrate chrysoberyl by a simple gravity process unlike with beryl which must be separated either by hand-cobbing or by flotation.

Nowadays, the mineral bertrandite is the source mineral for more than 90 per cent of the beryllium produced globally. Spor Mountain, the world's largest beryllium deposit, located in the state of Utah, United States, produced about 170 tons beryllium from the total yearly worldwide production of 260 tons in 2021. However, the bertrandite ore from Spor Mountain is not suitable for ultrahigh-purity beryllium products, due to its high content of fluorine and uranium. Ultrahigh-purity beryllium is made exclusively from the mineral beryl (formula: Be3Al2Si6O18). High-purity beryllium produced from a chrysoberyl concentrate could represent a low-cost alternative.

Analytical methods

Samples were placed in labelled plastic bags, sealed with a plastic zip and shipped to American Assay Laboratories in Sparks, Nev., United States, for preparation and geochemical analysis. AAL is an ISO 17025 certified laboratory. Samples are crushed, and a 300-gram subsample pulverized. All samples underwent ICP-OES/MS analysis of a 0.5-gram subsample after a five-acid digestion for 60 elements including silver and all rare earth elements (assay lab code: ICP-5AM60 or IO-4AB61). For samples assayed for beryllium, a 0.5-gram subsample is digested through sodium peroxide fusion followed by ICP-OES (lab code: IO-NFBe). Typical internal standards and checks were completed by AAL during analysis.

It should be noted that five-acid digestion method might not dissolve all rare-earth-element-bearing mineral phases completely. Also, columbite (niobium-tantalum mineral) is not well dissolved with the five-acid method.

This press release was written by Jack Stoch and Matthias Jurgeit, eurogeologist under the supervision of Jack Stoch, Geo, executive chairman and chief executive officer of Globex in his capacity as a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101.

Note: Grab samples and chip samples are selective by nature and are unlikely to be representative of average grades.

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