THE GEOTECTONIC ENVIRONMENT AND MINERALIZATION OF ZAMBIAN - DR CONGO COPPER-COBALT BELT WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON THE ETOILE COPPER & COBALT DEPOSIT, KATANGA, DR CONGO, CENTRAL AFRICA

The Neoproterozoic-lower Palaeozoic (Pan-African) Lufilian arc forms the central segment of a major Pan-African orogenic system crossing central and southern Africa. I( straddles the border between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo and deforms the Katanga Supergroup, which was deposited between 880 and 500 Ma and represents one of the main sedimentary accumulations of this age in the world. Parts of the succession host the greatest known stratiform copper-cobalt deposits, including half the world's cobalt reserves. Zambian Copper belt is related to a Proterozoic intracratonic rift and that the source of the metals is best explained in terms of movement of hydrothermal solutions up rift fractures. Central Africa experienced a period of extension and fracturing associated with a major episode of cratonic basic magmatism in between 1.4 and 0.9 billion years ago. During this period a network of mobile belts formed (e.g. Kibaran and Irumide) together with structures along which the Atlantic and Indian oceans were later able to form. A 'hotspot' is suggested at the south-eastern margin of the Congo Craton at which a triple junction developed and thus began a period of subsidence, sedimentation and metallogenesis. Etoile near Lubumbashi is a very well-studied deposit of Copper & Cobalt in different period right from 1907. Post opening up of DRC economy for Private sector that's too International investment threw open the doors for influx of latest world class exploration technology which resulted in reopening of abandoned mines like Etoile in a big way. Katanga possesses huge potential for Copper Cobalt mineralization a tiny fraction of which has been explored so far.