Cometa Copper Project
The Cometa project consists of 23 exploration licences covering an area of approximately 56 km2. The project is located approximately 40 km to the southeast of Vallenar and immediately west of the Orito Mining District. Access to the Cometa Project area is through the main highway south of Vallenar to the Agua Amarga junction, with a further drive to the east of 40 km towards Orito.
The project area hosts several prominent alteration and associated mineralisation zones. Previous surface sampling and geological mapping results have outlined 3 prospects, known as Area I, Area II and Area III. These prospects offer potential for IOCG style mineralisation.
Exploration work at Cometa is well underway with rock-chip sampling and geological mapping conducted across the project area. An initial field campaign at Cometa has been conducted to test previously unsampled areas identified from satellite alteration mapping and airborne magnetics. These areas are characterised by strong alteration and surface copper oxide mineralisation. A second campaign has also been completed confirms extensive, widespread surface high-grade copper mineralisation at the Cometa Copper-Gold Project.
Combined with historic rocks-chips and alteration mapping these new results support the view that the there is significant potential for high-grade IOCG and polymetallic PbZn-Ag mineralisation at Capote. Specifically, the historic completed and Bastion completed sampling campaigns have identified four discrete areas of high-grade copper mineralisation. Two of these areas cover several kilometres squared and highlight potential for large-scale, high-grade copper mineralisation.
Samples have returned peak assays of:
- 4.42% Copper,
- 8.14g/t Gold,
- 109g/t Silver,
Systematic channel sampling of key IOCG targets is planned to identify areas with the potential to hold economic mineralisation. Drilling of these is planned to test numerous targets so that ranking of these targets can be conducted and funds focused on the most likely areas for economic mineralisation. These more prospective targets will be drilled to resource definition and studies conducted to characterise potential extraction. The initial target at Cometa is a high-grade iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) deposit.
