Botswana Minerals plc, the AIM- and Botswana Stock Exchange-listed copper and diamond exploration company, announces that an AI-assisted exploration study across two of its eight northern Botswana licences has identified 36 copper anomalies grouped within six exploration "corridors" (geological trends containing clusters of anomalies).
The licences lie within an under-explored geological corridor linking Namibia's Damara Belt with the Central African Copperbelt of Zambia and the DRC: two of Africa's most important copper regions. The anomalies identified share the geological characteristics of several major operating and historical deposits and fieldwork to identify the top targets for drilling will commence shortly. The ongoing work is evaluating the remaining six licences.
John Teeling, Chairman of Botswana Minerals, commented:
"There is no doubt that AI techniques are revolutionising identification of mineral targets. The ongoing analysis of our huge database continues to provide outstanding results.
"The work complete to date, covering two of our eight licences in northern Botswana, has identified 36 copper anomalies.
"The analysis uses data from copper mines around the world to identify areas with similar geological characteristics, with the next step to rank these anomalies to better focus future fieldwork and any subsequent drilling decisions. This involves deeper AI analysis to support targeted field work."
Next steps
Botswana Minerals will proceed by undertaking the following workstreams:
• Initial field work expected to begin within three months;
• Apply the same AI-assisted methodology across its six remaining northern Botswana licences;
• Refine and rank the 36 target areas identified to date;
• Plan field programmes across the highest-priority corridors; and
• Prepare the next phase of exploration work based on the integrated target inventory.
Background Information
The Company's eight licences lie along the geological corridor linking Namibia's Damara Belt with the Lufilian Arc of the Central African Copperbelt in Zambia and the DRC, via northern Botswana. Geological evidence supports a single, continuous belt formed during the Pan-African collision of the Congo and Kalahari Cratons: the ancient tectonic plates of central and southern Africa, and this belt hosts the world's largest sediment-hosted copper province.
The Company's northern licences sit on the southern edge of the Congo Craton, in the same geological setting and carbonate host rocks that host the Tsumeb polymetallic mine and the Kaoko Copper Belt of northern Namibia. Despite this favourable geology, the area has historically seen limited modern exploration and is therefore considered by the Company to be highly prospective.
