Newly completed fieldwork at Ivanhoe Mines and Pallas Resources’ joint venture project in the Chu-Sarysu Basin, Kazakhstan, has identified copper mineralization outcropping on surface with an approximately 20-metre thick zone.
Reconnaissance work has identified visible copper mineralization in the form of malachite, azurite and chalcocite on the Merke licence, which includes a 36-kilometre-long, historically identified stratigraphic trend, with multiple samples returning between 1.0% and 5.0% copper.
While clearly not an economic occurrence in isolation, noted Ivanhoe Mines, the discovery of copper mineralization is significant in that it strongly supports the thesis that mineralization is structurally controlled, with faults and fractures acting as conduits for copper-bearing fluids into a package of folded sedimentary carbonate rocks onlapping older intrusive basement rocks.
Follow-up work will now prioritize mapping these structures in detail, supported by high-resolution magnetic surveys to trace them at depth, and by evaluating basement contacts and fault systems as potential fluid pathways.
Chu-Sarysu is the world’s third-largest sediment-hosted copper basin.
Source: Ivanhoe Mines