Deposit

Clayton Valley-Cypress

Clayton Valley-Cypress is a deposit with published resource estimates in Nevada, recorded in the USGS lithium deposits in the United States selected-sites dataset (2020 release).

Facts on this page last re-verified Aug 18, 2026 — the oldest verification date among its current claims. How we verify.

Location: Nevada, United States (37.750, -117.536 approx.)

Commodities: lithium

Deposit model: lithium-bearing clay · unclassified

Geology

“The western portion of the project area is dominated by the uplifted basement rocks of Angel Island, while the southern and eastern portions are dominated by uplifted, lacustrine sedimentary units of the Esmeralda Formation. Within the project area, the Esmeralda Formation is comprised of fine grained sedimentary and tuffaceous units, with some occasionally pronounced local undulation and minor faulting. The resulting topography consists of elongate, rounded ridges of exposed Esmeralda Formation separated by washes and gullies filled with alluvial and colluvial gravels and fine sediment. Significant lithium concentrations are encountered in the sedimentary units of the Esmeralda within the project area at ground surface and to depths of up to 124 meters. The lithium bearing sediments primarily occur as calcareous and salty interbedded tuffaceous mudstones and claystones.” (Lane and others (2018c))

Published resource estimates

As compiled by USGS USMIN from the cited studies. Resource classes follow the source; "approximate" flags values USMIN reports as approximations. These are not current company reserve statements.

Material	Class	Amount	Grade	Contained	As of	Reference
lithium (Li)	Indicated	—	886 parts per million	—	Jan 1, 2018	Lane and others (2018), Page 14, Table 1-1 — Lane, T., Harvey, T., Samari, H., and Brown, J.J., 2018, Resource estimate—NI 43-101 technical report, Clayton Valley lithium project, Esmeralda County, Nevada, USA, prepared for Cypress Development Corp. [Effective date May 1, 2018]: Denver, Colorado, USA, Global Resource Engineering Ltd., June 5, 104 p. [Also available at http://sedar.com]
lithium (Li)	Indicated	—	867 parts per million	—	Jan 1, 2018	Lane and others (2018c), Page 93, Table 14-5 — Lane, T., Harvey, J.T., Fayram, T., Samari, H., and Brown, J.J., 2018, Preliminary economic assessment—technical report, Clayton Valley lithium project, Esmeralda County, Nevada, prepared for Cypress Development Corp. [Effective date September 4, 2018]: Denver, Colorado, USA, Global Resource Engineering, Ltd., October 1, 152 p. [Also available at http://sedar.com]
lithium (Li)	Inferred	—	852 parts per million	—	Jan 1, 2018	Lane and others (2018), Page 14, Table 1-1 — Lane, T., Harvey, T., Samari, H., and Brown, J.J., 2018, Resource estimate—NI 43-101 technical report, Clayton Valley lithium project, Esmeralda County, Nevada, USA, prepared for Cypress Development Corp. [Effective date May 1, 2018]: Denver, Colorado, USA, Global Resource Engineering Ltd., June 5, 104 p. [Also available at http://sedar.com]
lithium (Li)	Inferred	—	860 parts per million	—	Jan 1, 2018	Lane and others (2018c), Page 93, Table 14-5 — Lane, T., Harvey, J.T., Fayram, T., Samari, H., and Brown, J.J., 2018, Preliminary economic assessment—technical report, Clayton Valley lithium project, Esmeralda County, Nevada, prepared for Cypress Development Corp. [Effective date September 4, 2018]: Denver, Colorado, USA, Global Resource Engineering, Ltd., October 1, 152 p. [Also available at http://sedar.com]

Exploration and site history

Site: “The project is centered near 452800m East, 4178200m North, UTM NAD 83, Zone 11 North datum, in central Esmeralda County, Nevada. The location is 220 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada. The project lies entirely within T2S, R40E, Mt. Diablo Meridian. The project consists of 139 placer mining claims and 178 overlapping lode mining claims. The claims cover 4,780 acres and provide Cypress with the rights to lithium bearing brines and mudstones on the property. The claims lie within portions of surveyed sections 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 28 and 33 of T2S, R40E in the central and eastern portions of the Clayton Valley, Nevada.” (Lane and others (2018c))
Resources: “This resource estimation includes data from all 23 drill holes. At a cutoff of 300 ppm, the results of the estimation were 720.3 million kg Indicated lithium (831.0 million tonnes) and 963.0 million kg Inferred lithium (1,120.3 million tonnes). Within an initial pit area, at a cutoff of 300 ppm, there are 344.2 million kg Indicated lithium (365.3 million tonnes) and 159.2 million kg Inferred lithium (160.5 million tonnes). The initial pit area contains resources sufficient to supply a 15,000 tonne per day operation for more than 40 years.” (Lane and others (2018c))
Discovery — Discovery of mineralization in tabular zones through exploration drilling, 2015 (Marvin (2018))
Evaluation — NI 43-101 compliant report, 2018 (Lane and others (2018c))
Exploration — Exploration diamond drilling of 14 holes for 3,657 feet was completed by Cypress, 2017 (Marvin (2018))
Evaluation — NI 43-101 compliant report, 2018 (Lane and others (2018))
Evaluation — NI 43-101 compliant report, 2018 (Marvin (2018))
Exploration — Exploration diamond drilling of 23 core holes for 1,905 meters was completed by Cypress, 2017–2018 (Lane and others (2018))

Record imported from USGS USMIN ver. 4.0 (June 2019). Developments after that date appear on facility records, not here; see the methodology.

Sources

U.S. Geological Survey · published Jun 1, 2020 · retrieved Aug 18, 2026 · archive