Noronex has launched a big gravity survey over its Humpback-Damara project in Namibia to firm up drill targets at the basement contact similar to those associated with Central African Copper Belt (CACB) deposits.
The company has today confirmed it is looking at some 5000 gravity stations for the program that is scheduled for drilling later this quarter and has received an initial funding tranche of $750,000 from South32 as part of that company’s $3 million, five-year earn-in.
Noronex holds more than 8500 square kilometres of Namibian exploration ground enclosing a big slice of the renowned Kalahari Copper Belt (KCB). Its tenure spans more than 300km of the copper-mineralised contact between the Ngwana Pan Formation (NPF) and the overlying Lower D’Kar Formation (NPF-D’Kar) within Namibia and right up to its border with Botswana.
The contact has long been recognised as a key structure that hosts copper and silver mineralisation throughout the KCB, which also extends north-east from Namibia into Botswana at least as far as the town of Maun – Botswana’s fifth-biggest town.
Noronex’s previous drilling, coupled with its regional aeromagnetics and gravity imagery and interpretation, demonstrates continuity of the prospective KCB stratigraphy all the way from Botswana, through its major Humpback-Damara complex and into its separate Snowball East project.
The company’s 100 per cent-owned Snowball East lies about 50km south-west of and along strike from the western extremity of the contiguous Humpback-Damara tenement suite.
Previous drilling at Fiesta in the Humpback project defined a steeply-dipping sheet of mineralisation stretching for 4km, corresponding with the prospective contact of shales and sandstones in the D’Kar Formation.
Copper mineralisation intersected in historical and recent Noronex drilling has thrown up results reminiscent of big copper shows in Botswana more than 400km to the east, such as MMG’s Khoemacau-Zone 5 deposit and its 167 million tonnes at 2.1 per cent copper.
Noronex says an 800m-by-100m gravity survey will reinforce insights gained from magnetics and drilling to help define structures and identify key prospective horizons before it prioritises drill targets.
The company’s Damara ground sits north of, contiguous with and parallel to Humpback and covers the northern margin of the KCB. It has never been drilled, largely because of the almost ubiquitous Kalahari sand cover that can be up to 100m deep. Damara has considerable potential for copper mineralisation in the basement shear zone, similar to that which characterises the CACB, which includes deposits such as Barrick Gold’s Lumwana project that contains 1 billion tonnes at 0.6 per cent copper.
It may also share important features with other iron oxide alteration systems such as Junction Mining’s Kitumbu project in Zambia and its 345 million tonnes at 0.5 per cent copper.
Noronex has begun the detailed gravity survey, initially on 800m-by-200m stations across three prospects in the Damara project area – Okatumba Gate, Otjozondera and Otjiuapehuri – to complement and firm up on existing information and interpretations from the complex aeromagnetic signatures in those areas. Infill survey lines and station spacing at 400 by 100m are being considered for higher resolution of critical areas to better define and prioritise drill targets.
The company plans to kick off drilling later in the quarter – initially at Fiesta and then at Damara – once all the gravity data is in hand and compiled with other geophysical and previous drilling data.
Noronex secured a strong endorsement for the prospectivity of the KCB a month ago when it entered into a transformational five-year, $15 million earn-in alliance with South32 to accelerate its copper exploration. The agreement gives South32 the right to earn up to 60 per cent of its new partner’s subsidiary, Noronex Exploration and Mining Company, which holds the Humpback-Damara projects.
The deal is accompanied by a two-year, Namibia-wide “Strategic Alliance” agreement between the parties to source copper and base metal projects for exploration and development. South32 has already paid Noronex $200,000 to kick off the Strategic Alliance.
Noronex holds a vast exploration area at the KCB, where there is a strong potential for the discovery of world-class copper mineralisation. Following its recently-formed relationship with South 32, the company is now pumping that new support into the ground to establish what fortunes really lie below the long-undisturbed sands of the Kalahari.