Los Hornos & El Cura Project: Auriferous Disseminated Mineralization-Buldibuyo
Los Hornos & El Cura Project: Auriferous Disseminated Mineralization-Buldibuyo
Los Hornos & El Cura Project: Auriferous Disseminated Mineralization-Buldibuyo
Los Hornos project is located in the district of Buldibuyo, province of Pataz, La Libertad
Region.
By land
Lima – Chimbote – Sihuas – Tayabamba – Buldibuyo (19 hours)
Air travel
Lima – Pias airport (Aircraft 1 hour)
Pias airport – Buldibuyo (3 hours 30 minutes by land)
LOCATION AND ACCESSIBILITY
Cadastral Plan
TOTAL 1210
Regional Geology - Metallogenetic Belts
Au deposits in
metasedimentary
Deposits of
Au-Cu-Pb-
Zn
in Eocene
intrusives
Modificado de INGEMMET,
Regional geology
The Pataz batholith is historically characterized by the presence of mesothermal vein gold deposits ,
also called Orogenic Gold. It has been exploited since the Incas period and for the last 100 years.
More than 16 underground mines distributed between Pataz, Parcoy and Buldibuyo, have
produced 6 million gold ore ounces and it is estimated that its ore reserves would reach up to 40
million considering the entire belt(Haeberlin Y., 2002).
The Pataz batholith is an intrusive body, located in a regional fault with a directional trend NNO-SSE
parallel and along the Marañón valley, presenting itself as a corridor or structural via of
mineralization, covering dimensions of 160 km. of variable length and 1 - 3 km. in width, emplaced in
the oriental flanks of the Eastern mountain range, this regional fault would have controlled later the
formation of the vein systems. (Schreiber et al., 1989, Haeberlin et al., 2002, cited in Haeberlin Y.,
2002).
Los Hornos and El Cura prospect is immersed in the Pataz - Parcoy – Buldibuyo metallotect auriferous
at its southern end.
Datings of 40Ar / 39Ar in biotites of monzogranite rocks and granodiorites of the Pataz batholith,
determined ages of 329.2 ± 1.4 and 328.1 ± 1.2 Ma. Respectively (Haeberlin, 2002), ages that belong
to the Mississippian of the Carboniferous.
Regional
Geology
Los Hornos
Regional geology – Profile
The area of interest of the prospect is located in Los Hornos & El Cura area presenting a structural
compartment, limited by major fault systems, to the west is the fault of the Huascacocha river and
to the east are Los Hornos fault and the Huiro Huiro river fault.
In the Eastern side , on Alto Cebada Hill, the Jhire mine is located, In that deposit, the main fault
systems are presented, such as the Murciélago fault, the María Esther fault and Don Julio fault.
The mineralization at Jhire mine is associated with large regional N-S striking faults (shear zones),
represented by veins, located on the left side of the Huascacocha river, in strike N0 ° -10 ° W,
formed by vein systems of fissure fillings, denominated Patricia and San Juan vein with
mineralizations of (quartz 70%, gray silica 5%, sulfides like pyrite, sphalerite, galena and native
gold).
In the area of Los Hornos, Vdg del Perú s.a.c. completed a second terrestrial geophysics
campaign in October 2008. the applied geophysical methods were the study of magnetometry
and induced polarization.
Most of the local geology information of Los Hornos prospect, comes from the work carried out by
Merendom Peru mining company and the thesis of Yuri Arones.
Local Geology
Panoramic view of Los Hornos and the batholith of Pataz - Buldibuyo. Looking
North - East.
Local Geology - Lithology
Modificado de Y. Arones
Local Geology - Structural
Modificado de Y. Arones
Lithology
Los Hornos prospect(Los Hornos & El Cura) is comprised of
quartz diorites, tonalites, granodiorites, granites, andesitic
dikes and aplitic dikes.
Numerous plutonic intrusions occurred in the Pataz
Batholith, particularly at Los Hornos prospect, being the
oldest unit, the granitic or sienogranite emplacements,
occured by granodiorite intrusions and laterly intrusions of
tonalites nature and dioritic stock.
The macroscopic description of rock outcrops in the field
works, are corroborated by studies of
petromineragraphy, and streckeisen diagram.
The faults are associated with andesitic and aplitic dikes.
Other intrusive outcrops near Los Hornos, is located on
the Alto Cebada hill, where monzonitic stock outcrops, a
probable magmatic activity Late Cretaceous (80-65
Ma.), which is not related to the auriferous mineralization
of the Pataz batholith (314-312 Ma.), which are
commonly found in northern Marsa Mine (Haeberlin,
2003).
Lithology
Lithology
Lithology
Sample 569 - 1.12 g Au / t
Litology
Hydrothermal alterations
The superficial manifestations of the alteration and
main hydrothermal mineralization are presented in a
conspicuously way and in form of a penetrative type
in Los Hornos zone (hot zone), presenting a pervasive
phyllic hydrothermal alteration (associations of
minerals sericite, quartz, muscovite, corundum and
carbonates, with sericitic halos along the contiguous
edges of the veins and quartz veinlets and in
fractures, with plagioclase crystals replaced by
sericite.
The strong phyllic alteration scales towards areas with
moderate phyllic alteration, with a presence of
argillic alteration with clay minerals : kaolinite and
montmorillonite as a result of plagioclases alteration ,
in levels and / or intermediate heights of Los Hornos
area. The phyllic and siliceous alterations would be
lmainly related to granitic type and porphyritic
sienogranites magma.
Hydrothermal alterations
GEOPHYSICAL LINE
8500N AND
EXPLORATION DRILLING
LH07-05
LINE GEOLOGICAL
SECTION 8500N
Structural
Mineralization
Gold mineralization events occur mainly in
areas of higher cracking with moderate to
strong phyllic alteration, through a structural
control related to systems of millimetric veins
and veinlets to centimetric polydirectional
quartz with fillings of hematite, goethite and
limonites oxides in fractures together with pyrite
in veins and in a fine interstitial dissemination,
with low content of sulfides as galena,
sphalerite, chalcopyrite, arsenopyrite,
pyrrhotite and coveline replacing chalcopyrite,
with textures of replacements and comb
structure.
The formation of hematite and goethite
veinlets occurs in replacements of pyrite and
magnetite mineralizations. Some phases of
pyrite is associated with free gold, also
occurring locally in auto-breach zones such as
a fine gold dissemination, trapped in the
intersecting quartz veinlets
Mineralization
The collection and registration of information on 271 rock samples was carried out for its geochemical
analysis. Two types of geochemical sampling were carried out, the first geochemical sampling
consisted of the collection of 129 samples of outcropping orientation (rock chips), and the second
type of geochemical sampling consisted of the collection of 142 systematic samples in mesh (rock
chips), which was 100mx25m between sample and sample.
The collection of 14 samples of undistorted and representative rocks of each lithological unit of the
study area was carried out and the corresponding information was recorded, for its geochemical
analysis by total rock, the size of each rock collected sample was up to 2.5 kg.
A total of 15 samples of rock outcrops and hydrothermal alterations were collected and recorded, for
studies of petro-mineragraphy and electronic microscopy, the samples collected in the study area field,
are representative of each lithological unit, and were sent to the laboratory of Dr. Gladys Ocharán,
(2006).
For the geochemical analyzes, the samples were sent to the BSI Inspectorate Griffith and ALS CHEMEX
laboratories, and were analyzed by gold using the analytical package Fire Assay, Atomic Absorption Au
30g., Gravimetric method (AA24 and GRA21) and multielement analysis (ME-). ICP41) previous digestion
by aqua regia .
Geochemistry
Out of the 271 rock samples, mainly in Los Hornos zone, the results of the primary geochemical
dispersion, in gold and multielements, show maximum and minimum values.
The anomalous values in gold ≥0.040 ppm Au in rock samples are mainly concentrated in Los
Hornos area, with an anomaly open to the northwest, which represents 32% of the total sample
population; 29% of samples show a strong anomaly ≥ 0.066ppm Au, with a maximum value of
15,900ppm Au.
Geochemistry
The Pearson correlation analysis of 271 rock samples determined positive correlations> 0.5
between the elements: As-Pb (0.72), Cu-Zn (0.62) that represent moderate positive correlations
and Mn - Ba (0.57), Cu - Pb ( 0.54), Zn - Pb (0.51) that represent weak positive correlations.
A statistical analysis of the 173 sediment runoff samples results in Los Hornos zone indicated a
maximum value of 6,480ppm Au and a minimum of 0.005ppm Au, determining a Background of
0.025ppm Au and a Threshold of 0.097 ppm Au and a mode of 0.010ppm Au.
The anomalous gold values of sediments ≥0.097 ppm Au, mainly surround Los Hornos zone,
focusing the economic interest area of the deposit, among N 9'101,000 - N 9'101,700 and E
237,800 - E 238,800 coordinates . These gold results are the result of the erosion of the
mineralization systems that occur in intrusive rocks in this area, which is the continuity of the Pataz
batholith.
Geochemistry
TARGET TO STUDY
2019
Photos attached