Regional Geophysical Surveys in Southern Peru

Abstract

An ore deposit of the so-called porphyry copper type has been found by the systematic and integrated exploration near Yauri town in Cuzco Prefecture, Southern Peru.
In 1970, airphoto and airborne magnetic surverys were conducted to extract possible ore zones in the vast area of about 12, 000km² and an area of 360km² including seven potential zones was picked up by these surveys.
This area was reduced to 50km² of three more favorable zones by the geological reconnaissance surveys, and finally a zone of the highest potentiality in the are was taken up by the detailed geological and geochemical surveys as well as by the induced polarization method. In 1973, disseminated sulphide ores were intersected by the diamond drillings. The present estimation of the ore reserves is several tens cf million tones of disseminated sulphide ores. This successful result gives an excellent example of a systematic and integrated approach of the exploration.
Due to the depth of the ore zone and the disseminated character of most of the ores, the induced polarization method was the only geophysical technique useful for the direct detection of the mineralized zone.
The usefulness of the IP method can be read by the correlation of the geological observation to the inferred structures interpreted from the IP data.