Lithium: made in Quebec

Lithium is a critical element to power the transition to greener energy alternatives. Quebec hosts economic lithium deposits in pegmatites negating import from elsewhere and its associated energy penalty. The anticipated use of locally sourced lithium is thus highly attractive. However, to find and identify Quebec sourced lithium ores we need to understand the mechanisms behind their formation and what distinguishes them. To these ends we aim to bring together a group of researchers in Geotop with complementary expertise and a shared interest in lithium. This group will visit several pegmatites to validate hypotheses on pegmatite formation and lithium enrichment and develop methods for a vectoring approach based on field observations, U-Pb dating, portable laser induced breakdown spectroscopy and noble gas geochemistry.