Copper
| Project Name: | KIGOMA WEST & KIGOMA EAST CHUNYA |
Click on map to enlarge |
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| Location: | Kigoma West and Kigoma East | ||
| The licences are located approximately 120km due east of the town of Kigoma and situated approximately 200km (5 hours drive) north of Mpanda. Kigoma West lies close to Malagarasi within the Mpanda District, and Kigoma East is located near Ilunde in the Kigoma District. | |||
| Chunya | |||
| This licence is located approximately 110km north of Mbeya, close to Lupa within the Chunya District. | |||
| Area: | Kigoma West | 687.02km2 | |
| Kigoma East | 735.60km2 | ||
| Chunya | 433.33km2 | ||
Access:
Kigoma
The two licences are contiguous, located immediately adjacent to each other. The Main town of Kigoma lies 120km to the west on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. The main east-west railway line linking the Lake Tanganyika region with Dar es Salaam, to the East runs across the northern section of both Kigoma licences. Kigoma has an airport and ferry port facility.
Chunya
The licence lies approximately 110km north of Mbeya, within the Chunya District. Mbeya is a large town serviced with a gravel air strip and lies on the main Dar es Salaam to Lusaka (Zambia) road. Access to the licence is via bush roads from the main road that runs north from Mbeya towards the Lake Victoria Goldfields and Mwanza.
Geology:
Kigoma
The northern 30% of both licences is covered by recent Neogene alluvials and soils. The basement of Ubendian aged gneisses is overlain by shales and silts, with sandy intercalations of the Bukoban-aged Nyanza shale. The predominant unit from historical geological data is the Malagarasi sandstone which consists of medium to coarse grained cross bedded sandstone with occasional thin shale horizons. Generally outcrop within both licence areas is poor.
View across the Kigoma Licences
Chunya
As with both Kigoma licences, outcrop is poor, with much of the Chunya licence covered by Neogene soils and alluvial sediments, with topographic highs being defined by inliers of the Precambrian Ilunga granite.
Float littering the slopes of Kasasi Hill, Chunya Licence
Historical mapping also indicates a number of shear zones have been identified trending between northwest to southeast and north to south, which are defined by prominent ridges formed of resistant silicified and ferruginous fault breccias. Massive ironstone has formed in the shears by hematite replacement of fault breccias and former porphyritic dyke rocks. The granitic rock marginal to the shears are sericitized and silicified.
To the northwest a series of ridges formed by massive quartz reefs follows south westerly trending faults. Large amounts of milky and clear quartz were found as float in the licence area along with several large quartz veins with fracture filling iron oxide between the quartz and country rock.
Quartz veining with iron oxide lined fractured
The Lupa Goldfield lies almost immediately south of the Chunya licence, with 24 tonnes of gold produced historically from 80 placers and lode deposits. Quartz lode mining began at Ntumbi, which is 20km south from the Chunya licence. Within the goldfield the gold and sulphide mineralization is known to occur within shear zones and ENE and north-south trending quartz reefs.