Partners cut copper at Kizilviran

Drilling on the Tunceli project in east-central Turkey has returned encouraging results for partners Rio Tinto (RTP-N) and Anatolia Minerals Development (ANO.U-T).

The program was focused on the Kizilviran prospect, where hole 2 cut a 47.4-metre section grading 1% copper, plus 0.3 gram gold and 68 grams molybdenum per tonne, beginning at a down-hole depth of 26.6 metres. Overall, the hole returned 118 metres (from 26.6 metres) averaging 0.63% copper, 0.2 gram gold and 63 grams moly.

The hole encountered continuous porphyry-style copper-gold-moly mineralization to a depth of around 145 metres, where it was terminated by a fault. It was collared 750 metres southeast of hole 1, sunk in 2003, which returned 580 metres of 0.4% copper, 0.14 gram gold and 52 gram moly. After cutting through 14 metres of leached cap, the hole intersected continuous porphyry-style copper-gold-moly mineralization to at a depth 594 metres. Poor recovery in the chalcocite enrichment zone (between 14 and 69 metres of depth) probably accounts for the lower overall grades.

“Our second hole at Kizilviran speaks volumes about the potential size and grade of the porphyry we are exploring,” says Anatolia President Richard Moores. “Reconnaissance indicates the system is at least two to three kilometres across, [though] we may not be drilling in the best spot yet.”

The Kizilviran prospect is exposed along a ridgetop as a leached, phyllic altered cap with widespread anomalous copper and gold mineralization. Samples from the cap carry 0.01-0.1% copper, up to 0.05% moly and an average of 0.2 gram gold per tonne. The base of the ridge returned values of up to 3.7% copper, 1 gram gold and 0.04% molybdenum from chalcocite zones exposed by spring runoff.

“This is a large, copper-gold porphyry system, and it will take us a while to figure it out,” says Moores. “Still, I feel our first two holes are more than encouraging, and I’m happy to see a continuation of the enriched blanket we first cut seven-hundred and fifty metres away in hole KIZ-001. This is the icing on the deposit.”

Rio has boosted the budget at Tunceli by US$900,000 to continue drilling at Kizilviran, and to explore the Sin prospect, 30 km to the southeast. Despite their distance apart, the prospects occur along the same structure, which is in much larger zones of intense alteration.

At Sin, the partners have outlined a 3-sq.-km zone of copper-gold mineralization. Copper mineralization is widespread, with a chalcopyrite/bornite-bearing potassic zone exposed in stream valleys below an oxidized, leached cap at the eastern end of the prospect.

Rio Tinto is earning a 66.67% interest in Tunceli under an agreement with Anatolia. To do so, the major is required to spend US$10 million over six years, pay Anatolia US$1.5 million in cash, and produce a scoping study.