Exploration Strategy

Regional Geological Setting

The high prospectivity of Inner Mongolia exists by virtue of its geological setting astride the Fold Belt.  It also takes in a substantial section of the northern edge of the North China Platform, a geological terrane that has accounted for approximately 20% of China’s gold production. 

The Mongolian-Great Hinggan Fold Belt (“MGHFB”) is a large scale zone of complexly deformed rocks extending from Kazakhstan and Kyrghistan in the west to south-eastern Siberia in the east and taking in mineral-rich Mongolia.  The Tien Shan and Altay gold belts of central Asia converge into the Fold Belt from the west and northwest respectively.  These terranes host some of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits.

The complexity of the MGHFB derives firstly from accretionary processes along formerly opposing continental margins; secondly from the nature of the episodic collision movements that eventually closed the intervening Palaeozoic Solonker Ocean; and thirdly from ongoing crustal deformation associated with more recent Central Asian tectonic movements.  The Belt consequently consists of Palaeozoic oceanic arc terranes in fault bounded juxtaposition with Archaean-Proterozoic continental fragments, deformed ophiolites and related ocean-floor remnants, all overlain locally by shallow marine and more recent terrestrial sediments.  Magmatism associated with a series of major orogenic episodes has added a variety of plutonic, hypabyssal and volcanic rocks to the deformation mix. 

The MGHFB is consequently highly prospective for a wide range of mineral commodities from active-plate-margin style precious and base metal deposits, through fossil fuels in post-Palaeozoic basins, to evaporites in the current landform cycle. 

The North China Craton is a relatively small and deformed platform comprising three principal blocks, the westernmost of which passes through Inner Mongolia and on into northern Gansu province.  This is the oldest and most stable part of the craton and contains some of the most valuable mineral deposits in Asia.  Approximately 20% of China’s present gold production is derived from the leading edge of the craton where Archaean gneiss basement and Palaeo-proterozoic metamorphic and igneous rocks outcrop through overlying clastic sediments.  Inner Mongolia takes in approximately 1,000 km of this regime.

Exploration Potential

Inner Mongolia is rich in mineral occurrences with government records reporting 70 categories of minerals identified in 860 deposits around the region.  These include ferrous and non-ferrous metals, precious and rare metals, rare earths (REE), native elements, metallurgical raw materials, fossil fuels, chemical raw materials, building materials and other non-metals.  The known deposits of iron, rare earths, niobium, zirconium and coal are large.  The rare-earths deposit at Bayan Obo is the largest known such deposit in the world and accounts for 70% of the world’s resource.  Its coal reserves are the second largest in China and the Erdos natural gas field is the largest onshore field in China.

Despite the exciting geological environment, the multitude of mineral occurrences and the undoubted capability of many Inner Mongolian government geological teams, exploration within the province remains relatively immature.  This is a consequence of the historic limitation of mineral access and exploration to government agencies and the usually very limited budgets of those agencies. 

Strategy

King Solomon’s exploration strategy in Inner Mongolia has evolved from an initial “grass-roots” prospecting approach to a tighter set of guiding principles:

• Focus on base metals and gold, in particular, porphyry and/or skarn copper, volcanogenic massive sulphides and orogenic gold.
• Focus on the geological belts that it considers most prospective for the above mineralisation styles, particularly in areas of those belts yet to be systematically explored.
• Awareness of the advantages of acquisition of mineral occurrence discoveries made by local explorers lacking the technical or financial abilities to advance them.
• Preference for situations where application of geological modelling and geophysical and/or geochemical surveys could lead to rapid project advancement.
• Consistent application of potential deposit size parameters – King Solomon’s interest is in making major discoveries and it has chosen to operate in Inner Mongolia because of the large-scale deposit potential inherent in this environment.