The Guajaraz Project
The Guajaraz Project, a prospective brown-field zinc-rich polymetallic opportunity with known mineral occurrences.
The project is located in the highly mineralised Central Zone of the Iberian Massif, which ranks as one of the most mineralised geological units globally and represents the internal zone of the prolific European Variscan Orogenic belt.
The Guajaraz Project area itself lies within a primary igneous and metamorphic crystalline plateau that hosts abundant hydrothermal vein networks that have a long history of exploration. Deposits recorded to date are of the BPGC type (zinc-galena-pyrite-chalcopyrite), and the project has been recorded to contain seven mineral occurrences. The largest and best known of these being the old Guajaraz Mine ("La Union") located on the contact between Paleozoic (limestones) rocks and migmatitic rocks.
This past mining of the area has demonstrated excellent potential for drill targets, further supported by more recent mapping and sampling that has returned high grade results. In addition to its prospectivity and large permit area (totalling over 1,530 hectares), the project is attractive to Variscan as it also has existing access and infrastructure already in place.
The current investigation permit for the Guajaraz Project was granted on 20 September 2018 for a three year period, which can be extended for an additional three year period for a total of six years.
Whilst the project area is under-explored using modern techniques (historical records indicate that the mineralisation was only partially exploited and remains open both along strike and at depth), a recent early stage exploration program under this permit successfully highlighted six key drill target areas which have potential for zinc dominated polymetallic mineralisation.
Variscan has developed a clear exploration strategy targeting multiple large, high order untested anomalies which have seen little modern exploration. As an example, at Guajaraz there is a clear exploration target associated with the old workings which can be drilled in a short time frame. Stewart Dickson, CEO - Variscan
