Prospect satisfied with Chishanya rare earth potential, eyes other projects
LITHIUM mining and exploration junior Prospect Resources says the company does not plan to undertake further exploration activities at its Chishanya Carbonatite Project.
Anerudo Mapuranga
Last year the company announced that preliminary results undertaken from a soil sampling process focusing on rare earth elements (REEs) at Chishanya in the southeast of Zimbabwe are very encouraging.
According to Prospect, the REE knowledge gained at Chishanya will help the company in evaluating other early-stage projects in Zimbabwe.
“Following a rock chip sampling program to investigate the potential prospectivitiy of the Chishanya Carbonatite Project (Chishanya) for economic rare earth element concentrations, Prospect does not plan to undertake any further exploration activities on this project.
“The knowledge gained at Chishanya has assisted the team in understanding the regional geology and Prospect is evaluating other early-stage projects in Zimbabwe for their prospectivity for rare earth elements,” Prospect Resources said.
Zimbabwe is reportedly sitting on 17 REEs, namely cerium, dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium, holmium, lanthanum, lutetium, neodymium, praseodymium, promethium, samarium, scandium, terbium, thulium, ytterbium, and yttrium.
REEs are now widely used in automobiles, electronic equipment, military technology and other fields.
Although Zimbabwe has not carried out a comprehensive mineral survey, President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2019 revealed that the country’s REEs are the second largest in the world after China’s.
Prospect said the Chishanya phosphate project is one of five known phosphate-bearing carbonatites in Zimbabwe.
The deposit has been explored by a number of companies since the 1950s including Anglo American and Rhodesia Chrome Mines Ltd.
The deposit is a series of un-exploited phosphate-bearing, apatite-magnetite lenses in carbonatite located near Birchenough Bridge, Manicaland. The project will be located at Dorowa near Buhera.