African Eagle gets pleasant surprise at Sasare

Trench sampling by African Eagle Resources (AFE-L) at its Sasare property in eastern Zambia has exposed a long zone of copper showings.

Three trenches on a group of showings called Eagle Eye exposed a 26-metre trench length grading 0.43% copper, 9 metres grading 0.69%, and 8 metres grading 1.15%. Trenches at Mweze, in the eastern part of the licence area, exposed mineralized zones 5 to 15 metres long with grades ranging from 0.57% copper to 3.53% copper; some had trace gold values.

Five other trenches, west and east of Mweze, returned grades and widths comparable to the Mweze showings. Four trenches at Mweze West graded 1.04% to 2.05% copper over trench lengths of 6 to 10 metres; a single trench at Mweze East graded 0.84% copper over 11 metres.

African Eagle completed two geochemical soil surveys between July and October, a reconnaissance survey on lines spaced at 400 metres, and a more detailed survey within the reconnaissance area on a 100-by-50-metre grid. The surveys defined one zone about 600 metres wide and 5 km long near Mweze; the zone trends slightly northeast. A second zone, centred on the Eagle Eye showings 2 km west of Mweze, trends northwest and measures about 350 km wide and 2.5 km long.

Unlike many of the Copperbelt deposits to the west, these occurrences are in metamorphosed volcanic and fragmental rocks of andesitic composition. To the south, these are overlain by quartzite and feldspathic quartzite units, and to the north they are intruded by a granite body, the Chapalapata granite.

The mineralization itself occurs mainly in hydrothermal breccias and replacement zones, with albite and specular hematite as accessory minerals. The host rocks are strongly altered, with albite, biotite, quartz, magnetite, epidote, and carbonates. The mineralization and the accompanying alteration are typical of iron oxide-copper-gold deposits.

Magnetic maps of the area show elongated zones of high magnetism that coincide with the location of the surface showings. Both hematite and magnetite are magnetic. Structural mapping shows that the magnetic zones and mineralization are on the limbs of a gently folded antiform.

Sasare, one of Zambia’s first gold mines, produced between 1906 and 1924. Recent operators, concentrating on the area’s gold potential, did channel samples that returned grades of up to 6.2 grams gold per tonne, but never drilled the showings.

The company is starting reverse-circulation drilling to test the showings at depth. More trenching is planned for the soil anomaly outlined northeast of Mweze.