The Democratic Republic of Congo (2007)

A deposit, petrographic and mineralogical assessment of samples of tin ore from the Bissie and Kalimbi deposits, a contract in behalf of the South African company Kivu Resources s.r.o.

The subject of this interesting job was the determination of the content of tin and of other elements, the microscopic, mineralogical and micro-probing survey of ore samples collected by the geologists of the Kivu Resources Company from various deposit structures of the underground Bissie and Kalimbi mined deposits in the Congo.

By studying the results, it was determined that the central area of the Bissie structure is very rich in ore with a content of Sn of above 40%. Also commercially interesting can be the unmined edge areas with a content of Sn of between 1-10%. A very interesting finding was that in the ore bodies cassiterite, as the main tin ore together with monazite, is associated with the abundant rare earth mineral rhapdophane at an average REE contents (with a predominance of Ce) in ores of around 0.5%, resulting, from an economic point of view, in valuable information for the implementation of a geological survey in the area.

The composition of the mineralisation of the Kalimba deposit is similar to that of the epigenetic dykes and the thourmalinised metasomatic zones of the Western Ore Mountains.