"The copper and silver mineralization is in sandstone and shale, and is especially concentrated where these rocks contain layers of carbon in the form of fossilized plant fragments"
Aurania Resources (TSXV: ARU) reported finding high-grade copper and silver over an area measuring six kilometres by three kilometres in the Kirus target area of the Lost Cities - Cutucu project in southeastern Ecuador.
In a press release, Aurania said that samples from boulders in streams contain up to 12% copper with 166 grams per tonne silver.
Following these findings, the company continued to explore the streams and discovered outcrop with grades of up to 5% copper with 70g/t silver.
"The significance of these sediment-hosted targets is that they are sheet-like and would be relatively simple to drill," Aurania's president Richard Spencer said in the media statement. "The magnetic features are interpreted to be porphyry bodies that represent deeper targets that would be drill-tested later in our exploration program."
The Lost City project is in the province of Morona-Santiago and consists of 42 concessions located in the central part of the Cordillera de Cutucu. The concessions extend for approximately 95 kilometres along the mountain range, which is part of the Northern Andean Jurassic Metallogenic Belt. The area contains clusters of porphyry copper, gold-copper skarn and epithermal gold deposits.