The Chambishi sediment-hosted copper-cobalt deposit is located on the SW margin of the Kafue Anticline in the Copper Belt of northern Zambia. The Lower Roan Group hosts the Ore Formation which, around Chambishi, averages 30 m thickness near-surface, thinning to 20 m down-dip, and to 6 m over granite basement highs. The Ore Formation consists of fine-grained biotite-quartz argillite with a basal zone that is strongly contorted, schistose, carbonate-rich, cut by quartz-dolomite-anhydrite veins and containing coarse aggregates of bornite and chalcopyrite. Associated quartz veins carry the same sulphide minerals. Above the basal zone, ore occurs as finely disseminated bornite and chalcopyrite, grading down-dip and up-section into pyrite. The Lower Roan is strongly deformed in the vicinity of Chambishi with the Chambishi Monocline as the main structure. Most intense folding occurs in the Ore and Hangingwall Formations.
The 2001 reserve of the Chambishi group of mines was 33.5 mt @ 2.55% Cu.
(Description written 2001)
