Solomon Resources Limited: Rwandan Tin Project Update
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- Category: Tungsten's News
- Published on Tuesday, 08 January 2013 11:32
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Solomon Resources Limited is pleased to report on its preliminary exploration of the Rurembo Tin Project in the Republic of Rwanda. The Rurembo licence area includes highly prospective pegmatite swarms immediately adjacent to the former Belgian-owned cassiterite-columbite-tantalite mine at Gatumba and unexplored strike extensions of that metallogenic district to the north.
Solomon executed an Option Agreement effective July 12th, 2012 with the principals of Speck Minerals Ltd., a Rwandan corporation, to acquire (subject to regulatory approval) a 100% interest in the Rurembo licence. The licence permits prospecting for wolframite, cassiterite and coltan within a concession covering 110,984 hectares located in western Rwanda.
Background:
The Government of Rwanda Geology and Mines Authority (OGMR) contracted Toronto based consultant Paterson, Grant and Watson Limited to carry out an interpretation of existing geological, geochemical and geophysical data in 2009. The PGW report included 12 detailed mapsheets at 1:100,000 scale and identified 21 Prospective Target Areas (PTA's) that were ranked for tin (Sn), tungsten-niobium-tantalum (W-Nb-Ta) and/or gold (Au) and base metal mineralization. Speck Minerals Ltd. applied for and was granted a Prospecting Licence for two of these PTA's. The Rurembo Licence, which Solomon has optioned from Speck, covers an area of approximately 1000 square kilometers in northwestern Rwanda immediately north of and on strike with the historic tin producer at Gatumba.
Location and Physiography:
The Rurembo Prospecting Licence is situated in the northwestern portion of Rwanda and extends from the city of Gitarama (population 83,000) in the south to the city of Ruhengeri (population 87,000) in the north. Limited commercial services and accommodation are available in both Gitarama and Ruhengeri, and most supplies and services in support of exploration may be sourced from the city of Kigali (population 909,000).
The climate of Rwanda is temperate, with two rainy seasons (March to May and October to November). The high altitude of Rwanda provides the country with a pleasant tropical highland climate, with a mean daily temperature variation of less than 2° C. Temperatures vary considerably from region to region because of the variations in altitude. At Kigali, on the central plateau, the average temperature is 21° C. The exploration season in the licence area extends throughout the year. There are no climatic restrictions on the conduct of field exploration.
2012 Preliminary Exploration Program:
The Rurembo Project is a grassroots exploration for Sn-Ta-Nb (W), largely predicated upon the proximity of the former Belgian mine at Gatumba now privately operated as the Gatumba Mining Concession and the projected strike extensions of that geological environment into the Rurembo Licence Area.
There are artisanal miners active within the Rurembo Licence Area; these are believed to be largely illegal and rudimentary cassiterite-coltan extraction operations directed at the weathered exposure of pegmatite dykes and no production records are available.
Exploration in the Rurembo Licence area will be directed at pegmatites variably mineralized with columbite-tantalite and/or cassiterite. At the type locality in the adjacent Gatumba Concession, beryl, ambygonite, spodumene, apatite and lithium-phosphates are the most prevalent accessory minerals. At the regional scale more than 130 large pegmatites have been mapped to date, but this encompasses only a small portion of the inter-massif area of the Rurembo licence area in which a far greater number of pegmatites are thought to exist.
The pegmatites of Gatumba, dated at 968 Ma, occur in four parallel networks between the granites, with each individual network traceable up to 5 kilometers in extent. Thickness can vary from several centimeters to 30 meters, and lengths of tens of meters up to 2400 meters. The vertical extent of the pegmatites is not known as only the uppermost weathered portions have been investigated by artisanal mining.
In the present exploration program, regional geochemical indicators include Sn, lithium (Li), beryllium (Be), Ta, Nb, W and molybdenum (Mo). The pegmatite dykes may report on airborne spectrometry as there is a known thorium provenance in the Gatumba pegmatites, and airborne gravity should help differentiate the less dense pegmatites from the surrounding diorites and metasediments. Analysis of aerial photography and satellite imagery should focus on identifying dilationary zones where the north-south trending pegmatites are cross cut by regional structures.
Solomon field crews mobilized to the Republic of Rwanda on August 2nd, 2012. The Company has leased a field office and expat residence in the capital city of Kigali and hired a Country Manager and support staff.
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