Download 6. El Indio / Technical facts

6. El Indio
/ Technical facts
Villa Ahumada, Chihuahua, México.
16,440 hectares.
Located 90 km SE of Ciudad Juarez (1’321,004 inhabitants). Access from Villa Ahumada is by paved road No. 45 to
railroad Lucero station. Continue 43 km to the east by dirt road.
Magmatic. Carbonatite emplacement.
Rare earth.
Rhyolitic porphyry.
Silicification. Slightly argillical.
993 ppm ∑ REE
95,288 tons REE.
Early stage.
Geological surveying, semi-detail. Channel an geochemical samples. Total investment: $90,909.09 USD.
Rare earth mineralization is strongly related to carbonatite dykes and magmatic breccias, and to a carbonatite
province that includes Yuca, Mariana and El Indio localities, all with rare earth contents.
Mariana project (Peñoles), north and 8 km was drilled and explored confirming ∑REE content averaging
1,600 ppm.
Go to extended Technical Report
6. El Indio Project
El Indio Project is located north of Chihuahua State,
28 km NW of Villa Ahumada, and 95 km SSE of
Ciudad Juarez, border with the United States. The
zone is a desert with access through the ChihuahuaCiudad Juarez paved road. Igneous rocks outcropping
in El Indio have magmatic affinity with those
exposed in Mariana and Yuca localities. Together,
these three sites make the so called Chihuahua
Carbonatite Complex (CCC), an occurrence of
carbonatites that may be related to the Trans Pecos
Texas Alkali Province, aligned parallel to the Río
Bravo Rift.
The northern exposure at El Indio corresponds to
an irregular 20-25 meters chimney (pipe) composed
by spotted-like rocks due to amphibole microblastic
aggregates in a quartz- feldspar and calcite matrix
which, in turn, is crossed by veinlets filled with
ferromagnesian minerals. These veinlets also intersect
deformed laminated settings filled with hematite.
This texture assemble strongly resembles a Dalmatian
skin. Associated, appears an iron bearing compact
rock of clastic-tuffaceous aspect and brown in color
with micro-folded textures, an evidence of a ductile
deformation regime affecting the original lamination.
Chihuahua state - 16,440 hectares
Geology map
In the central part, an outcrop of 200 meters wide
per about 2 kilometers length was identified and
designed as Dalmatian 2 whose larger axis has N-S
strike that bends NNW until clearly aligns with the
aforementioned Dalmatian 1 exposure.
exist, nevertheless, some zinc grades (0.02% to 1.1%) and ∑REE 0.16% have
been reported, with lanthanum and cerium content of 0.08% and 0.07%.
Part of the ferruginous material has been quarried out in the skarn zone.
In Mariana zone (a third party property) granite
porphyry intruded by carbonatite is described over
an area of 750 x 350 m. Peñoles put five drill holes
305 meters depth that never passed through the
carbonatite breccia. No precious or base metals data
Lab results of El Indio indicate that ∑REE is 0.1%, with grades of 340-350
ppm Ce and 150-160 ppm La, a little lower than the ones reported in the drill
holes of Mariana mine. Rare earth emplacement, in both cases, is probably
due to a complex magmatic process; nevertheless, it is possible that REE
may concentrate into the ferromagnesian microblastic aggregates.