Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Erika - Century`s geologists are far more optimistic than I thought

I had thought the geologists were thinking that Erika would be a 500,000 tonne deposit (as a super conservative first find) to start with and then the geologists would expand substantially their estimate as they gather more info. But, I figured it would have a slim chance of growing into a giant deposit.

It kept bugging me (over and over) that the geologists would have such a low starting point (even for a conservative starting point). As such, I decided to go back to double check all of the info.

It`s not 500,000 tonnes. Our geologists are thinking that our Erika copper-gold-silver system should have at least 500,000,000 tonnes. If it turns out to be correct (only after serious exploration efforts) then this will be huge - indeed, maybe a world class system afterall.

From Century`s March presentation:

``Erika >> Copper-gold-silver porphyry system in excess of 500Mt``

I also confirmed it from the last conference call (still on Century`s website). Peggy says ``500,000,000 tonnes``.

Here is the size of the other world class Cu-porphyry systems in the Southern Peru belt.

*Zafranal (50 kilometres from Erika) - will be large when 43-101 comes out

*Cerro Verde - 595,000,000 tonnes

*Cerro Negro - 64,000,000 tonnes

*Cuajone - 1,273,000,000 tonnes

*Quellaveco - 974,000,000 tonnes

*Toquepala - 770,000,000 tonnes

Century geologists must be thinking that there is a huge system (underneath, but near-surface). There was a thought in one of the SJ 43-101 reports that this could be a possibility (I remember reading it).

Again, insufficient work has been done on Erika to firmly conclude that 500,000,000 tonnes is definitely within the Erika system. However, it is optimistic that our geologists are thinking that this is likely the situation with Erika. They have the expertise. Also, we are perfectly located (perfect address) within the Southern Peru belt for this type of deposit. The Zafranal discovery is proof of that. We have the same geology as the Zafranal property. I also remember reading (and seeing a diagram with surface rock samples) that suggests Erika`s strike area likely branches out for 1 or 2 square kilometres.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Erika is a possible Cu-Au-Mo system.

Unfortunately all I can find past history of is some chip sampling, and the values returned were low. I don't know if this was only surface sampling or not, though.

Erika can have 500Mt of ore, but it can also have nothing of any mineable grade. What have the others found on Erika's borders?

production05 said...

``10,000 PPM is 1%, and 1,000 PPM is 0.1%``

``...copper contents of surface rocks, even those over the top of a copper deposit, generally contain less than 1,000 PPM because copper is easily dissolved away by rainwater.``

``The rocks may contain more or less copper at depth. A gravel or other rock type that was deposited over the top of a copper deposit, burying it, may not be rich in copper, even though the deposit may be only a short depth below the surface. A layer that is away from a granite porphyry at the surface may not contain much copper, but may be more copper rich at depth where it is intersected by the granite porphyry. Likewise, a layer may be very copper rich at the surface, but may not contain much copper at depth.``