Greenland, Amaroq Minerals says Kobberminebugt’s high-grade nature is ‘unsurprising’
Amaroq Minerals Ltd told investors that results from its 2022 Kobberminebugt project exploration programme in Greenland indicate significant copper mineralization to the western end of the emerging mineral belt which the company is exploring.
Providing details of the 2022 programme, Amaroq CEO Eldur Olafsson said: “The company continues to further its strategic metals projects, building upon the mineral potential of South Greenland.
“Kobberminebugt’s high-grade nature is unsurprising given the historic small-scale mining in the area, and our team is now working closely to identify extensions and additional mineralised bodies to build a large exploration target through our future field programme,” he added in a statement.
The Greenland-focused explorer noted that it acquired the licence covering these occurrences in the summer of 2021, following the conclusion of its mineral system modelling of South Greenland.
Exploration conducted across the licence in 2022 consisted of early-stage geological reconnaissance of the metavolcanic/granite contact zones over the historic Josva copper mine and up to 40 kilometres (km) along strike of the Kobberminebugt shear zone. This work included detailed drone surveying of the outcropping mineralisation at Josva at surface and within the historic adit system.
Amaroq said the programme aimed to confirm the presence and style of the mineralisation, assess its potential to host a mineral resource through extensions of the historical mine and in multiple bodies along strike and review the most suitable way to generate targets across this licence block in 2023.
The company said its fieldwork indicated massive copper sulphide bearing (bornite, chalcopyrite, chalcocite) mineralisation hosted in a sheared vein system that parallels the Kobberminebugt shear. These veins are hosted within a roughly 25-metre (m) wide diopside-hornblende skarn exhibiting a strong cleavage and hosting lower-grade copper mineralisation. This zone is in direct contact with hydrothermally altered Ketilidian granites.
Samples of these vein systems returned up to 4.2% copper over 2.5m including 11.6% copper over 50 centimetres (cm). Minor gold and silver grades were also reported, the company said.
2022 exploration highlights:
- Surface and underground surveys completed over the historic Josva copper mine have built an understanding of mineralisation style, extent and controlling geology;
- Copper mineralisation confirmed as skarn related, with potential for significant tonnages at depth or along strike. This opens up the potential for numerous similar bodies across more than 40 km of granite contact zone, which will be further explored during 2023;
- Remaining mineralisation at Josva sampled with channel samples, which recorded up to 4.2% copper over 2.5m including 11.6% copper over 50cm; and
- Mineralisation relates to the same geological events sampled at the company’s Sava project highlighting the significant scale of this emerging copper belt over at least a 120-km strike length.
Amaroq said its geology team is now confident in the skarn origin of the mineralisation at Kobberminebugt which opens up the potential for multiple mineralised skarns along the granite contact zone which extends around 40 km to the northeast and in a further around 35-km contact zone in the north of the licence.
This highlights the copper potential of this area of the South Greenland copper belt, it added. Further, from assessing the attitude of the surface mineralisation at Josva, Amaroq said the geology team believes there is potential that this narrow mineralisation style could open up at depth or along strike, indicating mine scale tonnages.
2023 exploration programme
Amaroq said it intends to follow this exploration with a detailed assessment in 2023 of the skarn geometry and mineralogy, and plans to generate targets at depth at Josva and along strike of the skarn contact zones and Kobberminebugt shear system through commissioning a detailed airborne geophysical programme utilising a similar system to that successfully employed across its other Greenland assets.
Amaroq’s principal business objectives are the identification, acquisition, exploration, and development of gold and strategic metal properties in Greenland. The company’s principal asset is a 100% interest in the Nalunaq Project, an advanced exploration stage property with an exploitation licence including the previously operating Nalunaq gold mine. It has a portfolio of gold and strategic metal assets covering 7,866.85 square kilometres, the largest mineral portfolio in Southern Greenland covering the two known gold belts in the region, Pro Active Investors writes.