fyi AA, I emailed Ross re the change in commodity focus and he promptly clarified things. Perhaps the conveyor belt is warming up as Grub predicted...
Hi Ross
We noticed that Inca was mentioned in the S32 annual report quoting "Cu Au Zn" exploration (which is encouraging) and I had a couple of questions when you get time:
1. Up until now Zn has been our focus, is that because it is regarded as "keys to the vault" (>1% soil anomaly from memory).
2. What exactly is the vault now for Riqueza? And how is that different from Cerro?
Thanks in advance.
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Ross' response:
Good question - thank you. Firstly, it is encouraging that we appear in South32’s 2018 annual report, even though the final geophysics results are not in yet. Remarkable! So .... what are they looking for and why the commodity shift?
Paul, the answer to the first question answers the second. South32 is looking for very large (mega-sized) porphyry and skarn deposits. In central Peru, porphyries are often mineralised in Cu and Au, and skarns are often mineralised in Cu and Zn.
Our projects, Riqueza and in fact, Cerro Rayas, are located within the prolific Miocene porphyry-skarn belt of central Peru. At Riqueza, South32 is looking for the types of deposits that are already known in this belt, Cerro De Pasco (which is over 200 million tonnes in size) and Antamina (which is over 800 milllion tonnes in size).
So now, Riqueza has a dual potential, mega-sized Au-Cu-Zn-(Ag-Pb) deposits and also smaller Zn-Ag-Pb deposits (like at Humaspunco, which is a carbonate replacement deposit).
I hope this explains the South32 annual report reference to Cu-Au-Zn at Riqueza.
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