Madagascar comprises a fragment of the African Plate, rifted from the vicinity of Tanzania at the time of the breakup of Gondwana some 200 million years ago. At that time Madagascar remained joined with India; moving east-by-south until the late Cretaceous (i.e. approximately 70 million years ago), whereupon the two land masses split apart.

The eastern two-thirds of Madagascar is composed of Precambrian basement complex of Archaean to Neoproterozoic age (the Malagasy Shield). The rocks provide a record of the opening and closing of a major Neoproterozoic ocean and mountain building event during the assembly of Gondwana. This amalgamation formed one the largest orogenic belts known on the planet, the East African Orogen, stretching from the Middle East to southern Africa, a distance of 7,000km. In Madagascar, a series of accreted Proterozoic terraines were thrust over a fragment of Archaean basement, thought to have once been part of the Dharwar Craton of India. These orogenic belts and associated thrust sheets show variable but generally high (upper amphibolite to granulite facies) metamorphic deformation.

Nonconformably overlying the crystalline rocks of the Malagasy Shield is a sequence of Upper Palaeozoic to middle Mesozoic sediments. These unmetamorphosed sediments comprise the western third of the country and are dominated by the Karoo Supergroup, so named due to its known similarity and presumed correlation to its namesake sequence in South Africa. Various components of the Karoo sediments host the bulk of known uranium and coal occurrences in Madagascar.

Madagascar is interpreted as having undergone several periods of structural deformation in the mid-Proterozoic to early Palaeozoic, equating with the amalgamation of Gondwanaland. In its latter stages, this process was associated with the intrusion of granite and later pegmatite. A major resultant feature of this formational process is the NW-SE striking Bongolava - Ranotsara Shear Zone, a sinistral structure which truncates the Malagasy Shield over a 400km extent and has been correlated with equivalent structures on the African mainland and Sri Lanka.

Subsequent rifting associated with the separation of India and Madagascar in the late Mesozoic resulted in numerous volcanic events of varying composition.

Initial orogenic activity provided the driving force for metalliferous mineralisation within Madagascar, with subsequent early Palaeozoic granite intrusions and Cretaceous rhyolitic volcanism providing a primary source for uranium and the various gemstones for which the country is so well known.

There are a wide variety of mineral deposits in Madagascar, including precious, base and strategic metals, nonmetalliferous and gemstones. The vast majority of these however can be classified only as occurrences, as few have been mined or explored sufficiently to delineate them for tonnage and grade.

Nickel, Copper, Cobalt and PGE

Examples of known nickel mineralisation in Madagascar currently comprise lateritic deposits, the abovementioned Ambatovy project being the most advanced. Additionally, recorded (historical) lateritic nickel mineralisation occurs at nearby Bemainty (also called ‘Nickelville’), located northwest of the eastern port of Tamatave. To the south, extensive nickel-cobalt laterites also occur along the central eastern coast in the Mananjary region, with known resources just inland from Mananjary at Valozoro. From historical records of the Geological Survey of Madagascar, these deposits average in the range of two (2) and five (5) million tonnes at 1.3% to 1.75% nickel (NB: whilst these mineralisation quantifications are included for reference and information purposes, the reader is cautioned that these are historical figures; that there has been insufficient exploration to define a Mineral Resource and that it is uncertain if further exploration in these areas will result in the determination of a Mineral Resource.)

Nickel sulphide occurrences within Madagascar are poorly recorded. Through separate joint venture agreements, (AIM-listed) Jubilee Platinum are currently active at their Ambodilafa project in the Valozoro region, their Londokomanana project in the Andriamena massif north of Tana and the Itsindra / Lanjanina project west of Ambodilafa. These programmes are all targeting intrusiverelated Ni-Co-PGE mineralisation, with Itsindra additionally targeting skarn-hosted Cu-Pb-Zn-Mo mineralisation.

According to historical records of the Madagascar Geological Survey, modest deposits of copper occur at Ambatovarahina (approximately 250,000 T averaging 4.75% Cu) in central Madagascar southeast of the Capital, Besakoa (Vohibory area - approximately one million tonnes averaging 0.6% Cu) adjacent to Company projects in the south and Daraina in the extreme north. These are generally hydrothermally generated polymetallic deposits with a Cu-Pb-Zn-(Ag) association. Surface indicators commonly manifest as Cu-rich gossans (NB: whilst these mineralisation quantifications are included for reference and information purposes, the reader is cautioned that these are historical figures; that there has been insufficient exploration to define a Mineral Resource and that it is uncertain if further exploration in these areas will result in the determination of a Mineral Resource).

No significant occurrences of PGE’s are currently known within Madagascar. PGE’s are known to occur within comparatively small (i.e. 1 to 5 km long x 1 to 2km wide) ultramafic intrusives of dunitic to pyroxenitic composition (e.g. Andriamena Cr deposit). PGE concentrations in these environments are in the range of 50 to 100 ppb (Pt + Pd), with historical nickel-copper values in drilling in excess of 2% nickel and 0.4% copper. Additionally, the abovementioned Jubilee Platinum are exploring PGE occurrences within their various tenement holdings in central and eastern Madagascar.

On the available evidence the most likely model for economic PGE mineralisation occurrence within Madagascar is the Country Rock Contamination Type. At Noril’sk and Voisey Bay (two of the largest Ni-Cu-PGE deposits in the world), sulphur saturation is attributed to contamination of the magma by sulphur or silica from rocks with which the magma comes into contact. Felsic and sedimentary rocks may cause this contamination. Conduits or feeder zones through which magma is fed into the intrusion are important sites of potential contamination and sulphide accumulation. Sulphides may collect in embayments in the feeder zone or at the entrance and/or floor of an intrusion where the relatively heavy sulphide droplets settle out of the magma. The sulphides become progressively enriched in metals through reaction with fresh batches of magma passing through the conduit.

Intrusions that host Ni-Cu-PGE deposits have a variety of forms ranging from large layered intrusions such as the Bushveld Complex to dykes and sills, e.g. the Great Dyke, Pechenga and Noril’sk, or smaller complex intrusions such as Lac des Iles and Voisey Bay. The anorthosite host intrusive at Voisey Bay is also found within the Company’s Ampanihy Project. Initial prospecting around the margins of these bodies has yielded indications of Pt-Pd mineralisation associated with Cu locally along the intrusive margin.

Information as of Mar 2010