Tisova/Klingenthal Copper/Cobalt Project

The Tisova exploration project covers over 120km² straddling the German/Czech border near the Czech town of Kraslice and the German town of Klingenthal in the Erzgebirge mountain range. From the 13^th Century there is evidence of copper mining in the region with documents recording the construction of the Tisova Mine in the 17^th Century. Klingenthal has been a centre for brass musical instrument manufacturing for over two hundred years using brass made from local copper.

Formal mining at the Tisova Mine ended in the 1970s but exploration work continued until the mine was closed in 1989. There was more than 30km of underground development, down to 400m below surface, and grades were recorded up to 17.1% Cu and 0.69% Co. There are 72 surface and 142 underground diamond drilling holes with over 40,000m of total drilling.

The mining focused on a number of ore horizons and the deposit was believed to be a stratiform structure. However, more recent exploration work, particularly the 2019 geophysical study, show that the deposit is actually a Volcanic Massive Sulphide. In addition, this work identified a new target, over 800m from the mine, as the potential source of the mineralised horizons. This has allowed drill targets to be identified in both Germany and Czech.

In 2021, through Quest Critical Metals’ 100% owned Czech subsidiary Golden Pet, an application was made, as part of a European wide consortium, for a grant from the EU’s Horizon Europe program, the EU’s key funding program for research and innovation.

Horizon granted the consortium €7.2m for its Exploration Information Systems Project (EIS). Tisova will be a test site for a new geo-modelling and data analysis tool created by the Project to help discover critical metal deposits in the EU (https://eis-he.eu/)

The second EIS project meeting was held in Dresden in late November 2022, where Quest’s current CEO was able to meet key figures in the German raw materials sector including the mining Oberberghauptmann of Saxony and the Akademischer Oberrat from the  Deutsche Rohstoff Agentur (https://eis-he.eu/2023/01/26/catching-up-on-our-progress-the-eis-progress-meeting-at-dresden/ ).