A LCT Pegmatite Spectral Library of the Aldeia spodumene deposit: contributes to mineral exploration

Studies focused on methodologies for locating and prospecting Li-Cs-Ta (LCT) pegmatites are increasingly relevant, given their importance for the energy market in a scenario where new sources need to be identified. Considering the inherent costs of field campaigns to identify targets in situ, this study presents alternatives, focusing on a preliminary evaluation of the spectral signature of targets at a specific site to serve as an added value for future exploration studies. Moreover, such spectral and remote sensing-based approaches help to decrease the impacts of early stages of exploration due to their less invasive nature. Therefore, we present a spectral library built with empirical data available for public use, focusing on Lithium minerals and pegmatites of the Barroso pegmatite field (Portugal), one of the largest hard-rock European Lithium deposits, built within the scope of the INOVMINERAL4.0 project (https://inovmineral.pt/).The authors acknowledge the support provided by Portuguese National Funds through the FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (Portugal) projects UIDB/04683/2020 and UIDP/04683/2020 (Institute of Earth Sciences); through ANI and COMPETE 2020 as well as European funds through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) with POCI-01-0247-FEDER-046083 INOVMINERAL project. The authors also thank Savannah Resources PLC for access to the Aldeia pegmatite and for providing the samples used in this study