On December 3, 2021, Cerro de Pasco Resources Inc. completed the acquisition of all of the outstanding common shares of Cerro de Pasco Resources Subsidiaria del Perú S.A.C. (formerly Trevali Peru S.A.C.) including all their permits, licenses and concessions located at the Santander mining complex.
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Summary:
The characteristics and setting of the mineralization at the Santander Property are consistent with intrusion related, carbonate-hosted zinc-lead (copper, silver) deposits (Megaw, Balton and Falce 1996; Megaw 1998; Meinert, Dippert, and Nicolescu 2005), also known as CRD or hightemperature carbonate (HTC) deposit types.
The Santander mine is located within what is referred to as the Miocene metallogenic belt of central and northern Perú. It extends for at least 900 km along the Andean Western Cordillera and adjacent Altiplano and is characterized by numerous hydrothermal mineral deposits that formed about 20 Ma ago. Mineralization is interpreted to have occurred during a pre-lower Miocene Quechua I compressive event and spanned later Quechua II tectonism. Mineral deposits are predominantly hosted by shelf carbonates and other sedimentary rocks of Late Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous age, and by volcanic and intrusive rocks mainly of Neogene age. Base metal and precious metal mineralization was intimately associated in time and space with the eruption of calc-alkali volcanic rocks of intermediate composition, and the emplacement of mineralogically and geochemically similar, dykes and stocks.
The property is underlain by a package of Cretaceous carbonate and clastic sedimentary rocks that were tightly folded into a series of northwest-trending anticlines and synclines. The lower, predominantly clastic part of the section was thrust over the mainly carbonate-rich upper portion (the favourable host rocks) along a regional, north to northwest-trending thrust fault, the Santander regional fault which is approximately parallel to the fold axes with a strike of 150º west, and dips moderately to the west. Based on regional stratigraphic reconstruction, it has an estimated minimum displacement of at least 1,000 metres, and clearly has a control over the mineralization of the Magistral deposits.
Magistral mineralization is hosted in limestone of the Chulec formation, and their hanging-wall or upper limits broadly correspond to a siliciclastic facies section of the Chimú formation, often in fault-contact. The lower limit or footwall of the mineralization is defined as the base of the last significant sulphide horizon and is gradational. Narrow, but very high-grade veins occur perpendicular to the main Magistral bodies and occasionally present massive sulphide replacement in between the veins; as in the cases of Rosa, Fatima South and Fatima North zones. In the Magistral deposits, the base metal grade increases with depth. Mineral system analysis suggests a geological setting in the upper mid-levels of a large to very large (intrusionrelated) carbonate replacement system with very significant depth, and a lateral potential remaining open for exploration.
At the Santander pipe, skarn alteration and associated sulphide mineralization were mined to a vertical depth of 480 metres below surface, with historical boreholes indicating mineralization continues at least another 250 m vertically. In detail, skarn mineralization forms a circular, massive, plug-like body in the massive-bedded Jumasha limestone formation to depths of approximately 250 m below surface prior to forming more discrete skarn hosted replacements in the underlying interbedded Chulec limestone formation to 480 m vertical depth.