Red Rock Resources plc said it had mobilised a geophysics team to its 80% owned Luanshimba licence in the south-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The move follows the identification in late 2018 of strong copper and cobalt anomalism in the southern part of the licence by a programme of termite mound sampling.
Red Rock said that the geophysics programme would be supervised by Minerals Exploration Associates SARL and comprise a 70.95km ground magnetics survey and a 12km induced polarisation survey on six lines of 2km each. Raw data will be interpreted by Ronacher McKenzie Geoscience.
The gold, manganese and copper exploration company will also check on-site artisanal activity.
The survey aims to identify conductive targets and improve understanding of local structure ahead of drill targeting.
Red Rock chairman Andrew Bell added that the strong anomalies obtained from initial exploration, with copper values in the regolith samples ranging up to 519 ppm and cobalt values up to 425 ppm, were likely “very significant” and suggested copper and cobalt mineralisation at depth.
“Once we start pitting and drilling we are likely to have to maintain a continuous presence on site to keep artisanal activity under control, so good preparatory work including geophysics which will enable us to refine targeting and develop a cost-effective programme for subsoil exploration was a critical next step and is now underway.
“We are pleased to have identified and mobilised to site in these difficult times a technically strong multinational team to conduct our geophysics.”
The Luanshimba Project is located 65km south-east of the provincial capital of Lubumbashi in Haut-Katanga, in a 420 hectare prospecting licence (PR13513) in the Congolese Copperbelt.