It is reported that Elementos is advancing the consolidation of its strategic landholding in the world class Mt Isa district, host to several major base metal mines and deposits with the granting of two additional exploration permits at its Millenium Project.

The company now holds 248 square kilometres of exploration permits over a mineralised trend in a region that is host to majors such as Minmetals, Xstrata, Barminco and BHP Billiton. Elementos plans to explore these new exploration permits for copper, gold, cobalt and rare earth element mineralisation, similar to what has already been discovered in the company’s five existing mining leases.

The tenements are located on a major mineralised trend known as the Corella Fault zone near to Xstrata Ernest Henry copper, gold and magnetite mine. The Mt Isa mineral province has established mining, processing and transportation infrastructure in close proximity to the major regional centres of Mt Isa and Cloncurry.

The Millenium permits host a number of historical copper mine workings and prospects that were operated at around the turn of the century. The Federal mine exploited copper in bornite and chalcopyrite down to 135 metres and produced some 10,000 tonnes of ore at very high grades of 25% copper.

Other workings along a shear lode structure were less successful for copper mining but the lodes were noted to be rich in cobalt. Between 1964 and 1991 several companies including Carpentaria Exploration Company, Tasman Minerals and Murchison United, explored the district with trenching and limited drill programs targeting both copper and cobalt mineralisation.

A best intersection of 10.7 metres at 2,333 parts per million cobalt and 2.02% copper was returned confirming the thickness of the cobalt mineralisation.

In 2010 and 2011 Elementos completed a number of outcrop sampling programs to study the areas historically mined and drilled.

Source - Proactive Investors

(www.steelguru.com)