The Los Chapitos project represents a style of deposit known as IOCG (Iron Oxide-Copper-Gold) that extends down the Peruvian coast into Chile and includes such deposits as Mina Justa (Peru), Mantos Blancos (Chile), and La Candelaria (Chile), to name but a few (read more). IOCG deposits are particularly attractive exploration targets due to their high grades and frequent coproduct metals (gold and silver).

The following table and map some of the more significant project in Chile and closer home in Peru.

IOCG Deposits – A Geological Summary

IOCG deposits are hosted between the Coastal Batholith and the volcanic-sedimentary rocks of Cretaceous to Jurassic age along the western edge of the Andean mountains between latitudes 10° S and 31° S and run from the central coast of Perú extending discontinuously to northern-central Chile.

The activity of the Jurassic-Early Cretaceous volcanic arc in the coast produced the rocks of the Copara, Guaneros, Rio Grande, and Chocolate Formations in Peru and Punta del Cobre and La Negra Formation in Chile that were subsequently dissected by major regional fault systems. In Peru the Tunga and Treinta Libras faults control the Mina Justa and Pampa de Pongo deposits and splays extend down to the Chapitos project.

Alteration is often related to regional metamorphism and can include Sodic, Sodic-calcic, Potassic, Calcic, Hydrolytic, and Argillic alteration.

The deposits are developed as structurally controlled bodies, breccias, mantos and veins with a mineralization assemblage of magnetite, musketovite, specular hematite, chalcopyrite, bornite, chalcocite and, depending on oxidation level, malachite, chrysocolla and atacamite.