Solis Minerals Ltd (ASX:SLM, TSX-V:SLMN, OTCQB:SLMFF) has moved into high gear with exploration at its projects in a resource-rich region of southern Peru as it looks to capitalise on the growing global demand for copper to feed the burgeoning electric vehicle and clean, green energy sectors.
The field season is underway in Peru and it is full steam ahead for Solis to follow up the invaluable magnetic data gleaned from a recently completed magnetic drone survey at the Ilo Norte Project.
3D modelling, reprocessing of historical magnetic data and the new drone survey data have culminated in the identification of multiple high-priority targets within an underexplored Andean belt.
Moving toward drilling
Further fieldwork planned on the road towards drill testing includes ground-checking at Ilo Norte and at the nearby Ilo Este Project, where mapping and sampling have identified undrilled prospective zones.
In addition, the company has applied for an additional 3,700 hectares of highly prospective ground in the Ilo Norte region.
Executive director Matt Boyes said the Peruvian exploration season had well and truly moved into high gear.
“Very prospective corridor”
"We have now identified and secured additional tenements at Ilo Norte. We have also undertaken remote satellite data acquisition and processing, enabling us to focus on the most prospective areas now that exploration access is available.
"Our tenements occupy what we believe to be a very prospective corridor for copper porphyry-hosted mineralisation within an Andean belt that hasn’t been fully explored.
“Recent significant improvements in geophysical data processing technologies have enabled us to generate high-priority, undrilled targets from existing data sets.
“We are now ground-checking at both Ilo Norte and Ilo Este. These will be drill tested as soon as permitted.”
Ilo Norte Project showing drone magnetometry survey results in the previously unsurveyed area.
Ilo Norte work
At Ilo Norte, the company has carried out a magnetic vector inversion (MVI) with Fathom Geophysics of historical aerial magnetic data using modern software and filters.
By analysing the results, including structure analysis, several magnetic susceptibility anomalies associated with high-angle cross-structures across the main Andean structural trend have been outlined.
Some of these are in the ground acquired by Solis after its 2023 WorldView-3 (WV-3) satellite spectral imagery program with others identified in the southeast of the area and applied for during June 2023.
With magnetic anomalies often associated with magnetite-bearing intrusions or skarns in porphyry settings, Solis believes they are a valuable vector for porphyry copper-style mineralisation.
Drone magnetometry survey underway at Ilo Norte.
Drone survey
A drone magnetometry survey has recently been flown over the southern portion of the Ilo Norte tenement package, an area previously not covered by historical surveys.
There were 150-kilometre lines of east-west and four north-south tie lines flown in four days, covering about 31 square kilometres.
This work focused on following previous exploration, including remote sensing anomalies, prospective structures and geological mapping with the objective of identifying structural architecture and magnetic highs and lows potentially associated with covered porphyries or their associated alteration.
Four targets - M1-4 - were identified and geological mapping and geochemical sampling are underway.
Once field checking is completed, induced polarisation geophysical surveys may be undertaken over the areas considered more favourable as drilling targets.
Ilo Este Project
Meanwhile, geochemical mapping and sampling are underway at Ilo Este where analysis of WV3 satellite imagery in conjunction with previous data has focused exploration on a relatively unexplored western area.
An exposure of porphyritic quartz diorite with strong potassic alteration containing copper oxide minerals was located in an area previously untested by drilling.
Copper oxide minerals in a hand specimen from potassic altered porphyritic diorites at Ilo Este containing 1.5% to 2% copper oxide on the surface.
Solis will use the fieldwork to determine drill targets with permitting for this to be initiated shortly.
Work plan in Brazil
The company also has critical minerals projects in Brazil and controls more than 25,600 hectares of prospective tenements in the northern states of Rio Grande do Norte and Paraiba.
At Jaguar Lithium Project Solis has negotiated an extension to the due diligence period until September 1, 2023, due to slow production rates experienced during the current drilling program.
Over at the Borborema Lithium Project, an exploration team will mobilise this month to begin fieldwork.