500+ million ton open pit Cu porphyry deposit.
The Yoanca property is located 1,450 kilometers north of Santiago in the Cerro Blanco oxide copper mining district and is readily accessible by paved and good gravel road from the city of Calama 75 kilometers to the south.
The property consists of 1 exploitation concession totaling 30 hectares. Polar Star on February 27, 2008 announced the signing of an option to purchase a 100% interest in the property by making staged payments totaling US$400,000 over twelve months.
The property lies within the central sub-zone of the main Chilean Andean porphyry belt and covers a classic leached cap zone developed within the West Fault, host of many Chilean mega porphyry copper deposits including Chuquicamata. The West Fault is actually exposed in the three small open cuts currently being mined by local piquineros for copper sulfosalts. This northerly trending fault separates Cretaceous volcanics and intrusives to the west from Paleozoic meta-intrusives to the east as at Chuquicamata.
The walls of the piquinero pits expose a typical suite of high level copper sulfosalts including; chrysocola, copper wad, copper pitch and brochanthite in veinlets, disseminations, patches and fracture coatings in strongly faulted and sheared host rock. Intense destructive leaching and clay-sericite alteration generally obliterate the host textures but locally relic phorphyritic textures, possibly intrusive and quartz veinlets are present.
TopOther than the piquinero pits there are no public records of mining or exploration activity in the property area. ENAMI reportedly drilled two RC holes in the late 1970’s to test the leached cap zone which apparently bottomed in oxides at depths of 100-150m. During Polar Star’s field visits the piquineros stated that they were extracting ore grading 3-5% copper at the rate of about 900 tonnes per month.
TopExploration to date is insufficient to estimate resource potential however the property is central within the zone of Chilean mega porphyries, directly north of and covering the same structure zone as CODELCO’s Chuquicamata Mine with current minable reserve of 2.7 billion tones grading 0.69% copper. Hence the property is highly prospective for porphyry copper deposits.
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