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Location: 85 km E from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
19 John Plagis Alex ParkHarareZimbabwe
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Zulu project constitutes a well mineralised pegmatite swarm. The pegmatite swarm has intruded along the contact of a serpentinite body with the metavolcanics & meta-sediments, controlled by a north-north-westerly fault. The pegmatites dip 70-90° to the west. The area of interest is located within the Fort Rixon Greenstone Belt where the schist belt is north-south trending and tear drop shaped, measuring 30 km long in and 19 km wide near the broad section near the northern end of the belt. The central area of the claims are underlain by Archaean-age schists of the Bulawayan Supergroup, with serpentinites and banded iron formations at the base of the Upper Bulawayan Group in the east, and metamorphosed mafic volcanics (amphibolites) and sediments of the Lower Bulawayan Group to the west. The principal pegmatites at Zulu (the Main and South pegmatites) are developed along the contact of the Upper and Lower Bulawayan groups. Additional pegmatites are developed in the footwall sediments. The metamorphic grade is retrograde Greenschist facies. In the east of the claims blocks, epidosites, calc-silicate rocks and gneissic granites prevail. The northern most part of the EPO is underlain by a postBulawayan Supergroup aged massive granite. The Zulu pegmatites are typical Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum (LCT) pegmatites. Outcrop widths for the exposed pegmatites can vary between 1 m to 50 m.The strikes of the individual pegmatites may varies widely but the South, Main and NE pegmatites and their subsidiary footwall pegmatites trend approximately NNE. The short strike length petalite-rich River Pegmatites trend in an approximate SW-NE direction, while the SE Pegmatites strike in a NW-SE direction. Although dips can vary locally with each pegmatite, the dip of the South and Main pegmatites is generally subvertical towards the west, while the River Pegmatites are dipping subvertical to the NW and the SE Pegmatites subvertical to the SW. The South and Main pegmatites have exploited the serpentinite-amphibolites contact with the subsidiary footwall pegmatites mainly hosted in the amphibolite sediments. In the east the pegmatites are hosted in granites. The drilled widths of individual pegmatites can vary from less than a metre to greater than 20 m in thickness down hole. Occasionally along the contacts between the pegmatites and the host amphibolites, the individual pegmatites have undergone intense sodium metasomatism resulting in the formation of a lithium bearing amphibole called holmquistite.Lithium Mineralisation at Zulu Three principal lithium bearing minerals, spodumene, petalite and lepidolite have been identified in the Zulu pegmatites. Locally the host rocks of the pegmatites contain noteworthy amounts of holmquistite, a lithium bearing amphibole.Tantalum Mineralisation at ZuluMany of the lithium bearing pegmatites at Zulu are weakly mineralised with tantalum with the best mineralised pegmatite being the South Pegmatite (South Pit) having an overall Indicated Mineral Resource grade of 86 ppm Ta2O5 . The only tantalum bearing mineral observed to date is tantalite. The highest tantalum grade to date is 3,203 ppm Ta2O5 from a surface trench.
