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Location: 10 km NW from Chililabombwe, Zambia
2 Shaft, Chimfushi Road ChililabombwePO Box 11215ChingolaZambia
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The Lubambe copper deposit is one of approximately 30 copper/cobalt deposits occurring within the Central African Copperbelt. It is located at the north-western extremity of the Zambian portion of the Copperbelt. The deposit is hosted within sediments that accumulated in an intracratonic rift, which was subsequently closed during the Lufi lian Orogeny. The deposit mineralisation is defined as the ore shale (OS) type of mineralisation. Copper mineralisation is largely hosted within the OS1 Member, whose true thickness varies from 3 to 14 metres. The lower-most 1.5 metres of the OS1 Member contains very little copper, due to leaching which preferentially occurs at the base of the OS1 where the contact between the siltstone and conglomerate/arkose represents a permeability channelway. The transition to greater than 1% total copper (TCu) is abrupt and takes place over centimetres, above a thin red iron oxide-rich marker layer, which probably acted as a redox boundary. The upper contact of the greater than 1% total copper zone (assay hanging wall) is also well-defined in the assay profile, but is not as sharp as the assay footwall contact.Mineralisation occurs as finely disseminated sulphides along bedding planes and cleavage, in thin veinlets, and in lenticles and stringers, comprising of chalcocite, chalcopyrite, bornite, digenite, covellite, pyrite and carrollite. A large proportion of the nonsulphide copper minerals occur along fractures and veins and consist of malachite, pseudomalachite, chrysocolla, cuprite, azurite and native copper.Lubambe ExtensionThe Lubambe Extension resource forms the heart of this supergiant, centrally located within the Konkola-Musoshi basin with producing mines on either flank. To the south-west is the principle asset of Konkola Copper Mines, the famous Konkola underground mine and associated Fitwaola open pit. To the north-west is the active Lubambe underground mine and further still, the inactive Musoshi underground mine in the DRC. These operations exploit the same stratiform mineralisation that can be traced some 17 km continuously along strike with a maximum thickness of 24 m and grades of up to 15 % TCu. With a footprint of over 40 sq. km and growing, the Konkola-Musoshi basin is already the largest and richest copper deposit in Zambia and one of the finest copper orebodies in the world. The Lubambe Extension enjoys the predictable geometry and lateral continuity characteristic of the deposit type. Copper mineralisation occurs as disseminated chalcocite hosted within an easily recognisable argillite bed locally referred to as the Ore Shale 1 (OS1). The OS1 in the Lubambe Extension averages 10 m in thickness and >3.6 % TCu with localised zones of cobalt enrichment grading up to 0.2 % TCo.
