The Mushima North Project covers 701.3 sq. km. and is located 100km east of Manyinga.
Targets
The licence encompasses basement rocks outside the traditional Copperbelt and the region is a focus of exploration for copper-gold in so called iron-oxide-copper-gold (“IOCG”) deposits, best exemplified by the giant Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium deposit in South Australia and more conventional sediment hosted “Copperbelt style” copper mineralisation.
High-Grade Deposit Nearby
The past producing Kalengwa Copper Mine is situated approximately 20 km west of the licence and is believed to be one of the highest-grade copper deposits ever to be mined in Zambia. In the 1970s high-grade ore in excess of 26% copper, making up approximately 20% of the orebody, was trucked for direct smelting at Copper Belt mines.
First Quantum Minerals Technical Cooperation Agreement
Tertiary has secured a technical cooperation agreement with First Quantum Minerals Limited (“FQM”) over the Mushima North Copper Project, which allows Tertiary to benefit from FQM’s historic exploration data in the area, as well as FQM’s geological team’s extensive experience and understanding of the area’s geology. Further details of which can be found in the news release of 15 September 2022.
Tertiary’s Exploration Programme
Tertiary Minerals has completed an initial soil sampling programme over the Project, which has defined two copper-in-soil anomalies based on a total of 953 soil samples collected and analysed in the field using a portable XRF (“pXRF”) instrument.
One of these anomalies, at the C1 target is a significant open-ended copper anomaly, above 60ppm, covering an area of 4 km x 1.25 km, with peak value of 211ppm copper. The highest copper-in-soil values are coincident with the highest arsenic values in the pXRF analysis.
The C1 target contains intriguing gravity and magnetic anomalies; key geophysical targets for buried IOCG mineralisation.
A lone 1970s drill hole, RKN800, drilled at the C1 target, contains 33m grading 0.24% copper from 122m to the end-of-hole in association with highly anomalous arsenic, consistent with the high arsenic values in the soils.
Another high-grade copper-in-soil anomaly has been defined at the A1 target covering an area of approximately 3,000m by 1,500m based on a threshold 80ppm.
What’s Next?
A 2,500m air core drill programme is underway at the A1 & C1 Targets and we will update the market as soon as results become available. A programme of geophysics is being planned to define additional drill targets at C1.
October 2024 Drilling at Mushima North
Mushima North Copper Mineralisation in Breccia, Zambia
Sampling underway at the Mushima North Project, September 2023
