Montezuma lies in the Atacama Desert at an elevation of  2,800m in northern Chile, approximately 15 km south of Calama. The property extends over 50,000 ha, located within the Domyeko Fault system that hosts the major copper deposits in Chile.

Geological Setting

Montezuma lies in the Pre-cordillera, parallel and west of the main high volcanic zone the form the Andean Cordillera. The oldest rocks are of Paleozoic age and include gneiss, metadiorites, quartz diorite and tonalites.  The area shows pervasive chlorite-epidote-calcite alteration. Within these rocks Eocene and early oligocene porphyritic intrusions along the north–south striking Domeyko Fault system produced the major copper producing porphyry mines including Chuquicamata, Ministro Hales immediately to the north of Montezuma and Mina Escondida to the south.

Current Program

The Codelco deposits of Chuqucamata and Ministro Hales are located on the intersections of the N-S West Fault  (a strand of the Domeyko Fault) and major NE-SW faults. In the Montezuma project interpretation of the regional structure and mapping has identified five prospective areas (Melisa, Ignacia, Dayana, Patricia and Karina) located in proximity to similar fault intersections. Current exploration is focusing on the Patricia and the highly prospective Melisa areas.

At Patricia the reinterpretation of the previous drilling identified mineralized porphyry fragments of Eocene age, within thrust faults. These fragments are rounded - semi angular showing that they have been transported by the thrusts from the west. Mapping west of the current drilling has located the some of these thrusts outcropping at surface. Along these outcrops exotic copper enriched zones occur indicating that fluids have been transported copper along the thrust planes from a possible buried porphyry system. The identification of drill targets will take place once all the data is correlated.

Melisa, extends from the northern property border, covering an area of 4km x 4km of stock work, collapsed ring structures, and old copper mine workings. Over the zone, copper, arsenic, molybdenum, uranium and bismuth are highly anomalous. The rocks are altered, silicified, and stock worked. The fracture planes within the stock work are filled with hematite, limonite,  secondary quartz, tourmaline, copper oxides and occasionally copper sulphides. Late stage gypsum, barite and anhydrite are found throughout the stock work zone.

In the northern section extensive (1.5km x 1 km) old copper mine workings followed thicker copper oxide veins. Cross cutting thinner veins are observed within these workings. An excavator trenching program is in progress to test the continuity of the mineralization between the main vein systems.