Read the full UBC Science article here: Will B.C. get a charge from lithium?

Researchers from the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) at UBC have uncovered the first major lithium-bearing pegmatite in British Columbia – the Prof pegmatite above the town of Revelstoke on Boulder Mountain – marking an important advancement in understanding the potential of critical mineral resources of the province.

This discovery was led by Dr. Catriona Breasley, a recent EOAS PhD graduate and now founder and Principal Consultant at Criterra. While examining the outcrop, Dr. Breasley suspected that some of the clear crystals with pink rims and a distinctive lustre were lithium-rich petalite—an insight she later confirmed through X-ray powder diffraction. Over three field seasons, she collected more than 100 tourmaline samples from the Prof pegmatite. 

“B.C. is a geologist’s dream, especially up in the alpine where there’s perfect rock exposures,” says Dr. Breasley. “When you find petalite mineralization in one pegmatite, the likelihood you’re going to find much more is quite high. There are hundreds of pegmatites in the area, which are fairly difficult to reach, places that could contain much more significant lithium mineralization than what I found at the Prof pegmatite.”

Crucially, Dr. Breasley also developed a new method that uses tourmaline chemistry as a roadmap to detect lithium hidden deep underground. “We can see a hundred or more pegmatite intrusions in a 15-kilometre band running from Mount Begbie to Boulder Mountain,” says Dr. Lee Groat, Professor at EOAS and PhD supervisor of Dr. Breasley. “However, very few show lithium minerals on the surface — and the Prof pegmatite is the only one that has petalite. What Catriona found was that the chemistry of the tourmaline can tell you if an intrusion is likely to contain lithium at depth. This is important because the surface expression of a pegmatite dike is often small.”

Together, these findings highlight the broader potential of the Revelstoke region for future resource exploration and provide geologists with a new and effective way to identify lithium-rich pegmatites. Their work strengthens Canada’s ability to assess its critical mineral resources at a time when demand for lithium, particularly for rechargeable vehicle batteries, continues to grow.

Watch the UBC Science interviews with Drs. Breasley and Groat: