The 3600 hectare Zulema property is located
700 kilometres north of Santiago and 15 km west of the Pan-American
Highway. Regionally the property is located within the Atacama
Fault Zone in an area of interfingering Bandurias Formation
andesitic volcanics and limy sediments. The Coast Range granodiorite-diorite
batholith lies 1 km to the east and north. This geological
setting is similar to that at the Phelps Dodge Candelaria
Mine (365 million tonnes grading 1.03% copper and 0.25 gpt
gold) situated 40 km to the NE. A number of independent and
major company geologists have examined this property in recent
months and all concur that excellent potential exists here
for the occurrence of a Canderlaria type deposit.
Prior exploration by RTZ and others in the
1960's and as recently as 1995 have outlined a large Induced
Polarization and partially coincident magnetic anomaly with
Candelaria like characteristics. Outcrops are sparse but those
encountered are skarned equivalents of the Candelaria host
rocks and contain disseminated mineralization grading up to
1% copper and 0.9 gpt gold.
The Zulema property sits at the centre of
a huge land package recently staked by the BHP Billiton as
one of four prime target areas to be surveyed with BHP Billiton's
proprietary Falcon system. The stated objective of this survey
(Far West news release, 5 September, 2002) is to explore for
IOCG (Candelaria, Manto Verde etc.) type deposits.
This new acquisition follows from extensive
regional studies along this Late Cretaceous metallogenic belt
between Copiapo and La Serena. The Company's wholly owned
Sierra Pintada property (April 26, May 27 news releases) is
the first acquisition to result from this program and induced
polarization surveys over similar geologically selected targets
will be carried out shortly.
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