CABAÇAL VMS BELT
BRAZIL'S PREMIER UNDERDEVELOPED VMS BELT
Brazil is a Tier 1 mining jurisdiction, with recent M&A for Copper and Gold
assets
Licenses covering 50km of the 55km VMS belt and hosts two previous
selective high grade underground mines
Predefined Copper-Gold-Silver VMS mineralization with high-grade gold overprint over 11km mine corridor
Re-emergence of the Cabaçal Copper-Gold VMS Belt
Focused on becoming the next mid-tier Copper-Gold developer and producer with a focus on Brazil.
Cabaçal is a camp scale VMS project endowed with near surface Copper-Gold-Silver-Zinc mineralization with optimal geometry for open-pit development.
Located on grazing farmland in the State of Mato Grosso, and there is good community support backed by past operational history. Cabaçal benefits from existing local infrastructure including Road access, Rail ~385km, and Power Substation ~20km. The region is a net exporter of sustainable Hydroelectricity, with several locations within 50km of the project. The regional capital of Cuiabá is 4.5 hours by car to the west while the state has an active, well serviced and producing mining sector.
Advanced permitting covering 928 km2 :
- Cabaçal – Mining Lease Application
- St Helena – Mining License
- Cabaçal Extensions – 7 x Exploration Licenses
- Jaurú & Araputanga belts – 7 x Exploration license
Cabaçal was only discovered by BP Minerals in 1983, then operated as a small-scale underground gold mine from 1987 to 1991 mining ore at a high-grade + 3g/t Gold cut-off grade. This focus on high-grade Gold, left behind known layers of extensive, open, shallow Copper-Gold-Silver mineralization for Meridian to expand and develop.
The mine was acquired by RTZ (Rio Tinto), as part of the purchase of BP Minerals in 1989. It was decommissioned in 1991 during a global slump in commodity prices. Cabaçal was held via a single Brazilian private Co, until 2020 when Meridian signed the option agreement. Meridian has recovered an extensive part of the Cabaçal database that it is using to guide its development. In 2021 Meridian commenced an extensive field program leveraging off this data, that has hugely successful in confirming and expanding Cabaçal’s Copper-Gold-Silver mineralization.
The Cabaçal and St Helena deposits and other known targets form part of a Paleoproterozoic VMS system in deformed metavolcanic-sedimentary rocks of the Alto Jauru Greenstone Belt.
The package consists of a bimodal sequence, similar to many major VMS districts. Cabaçal’s stacked mineralisation lenses with cumulative thicknesses up to 90 meters and are variably enriched in Cu-Au-Ag-Zn.
VMS camps like, Cabaçal, typically host a cluster of deposits, not uncommonly spaced at 4 to 6km intervals, making both near-mine and regional exploration targets attractive. The production history of the worlds VMS camps has been defined over decades, sometimes +100 years, with their near surface resources largely exhausted. Cabaçal presents the opportunity for Meridian to create value from this undeveloped VMS camp.