Ep-03

EPISODE 3

How to do Frontier Exploration...the discovery story of Reko Diq

Duration - 58 mins

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It is the early 1990's. Alan Moore is a young geologist from Australia, working for BHP at the time. He heads to Pakistan looking for copper deposits in the remote, inhospitable south-western part of the country, an area called the Chagai Hills. Along the way, he meets Saad Husain - a local Pakistani who teams up with Alan and becomes his ever present project manager.

This is their story and how their work led to the discovery of the Reko Diq deposit. However, it is not your typical discovery story. It is much more than that.

Alan Moore (right) having a meal with Mir Nershawan (centre) Sanjrani and a local Baluchi geologist (left)

Alan C Moore is his typical field clothes - the shalwar kameez, the national dress of Pakistan. In case you cannot tell, he is the guy with the white hair.

The challenging times in the field. And appropriately, the ex-pat (Alan C Moore) is being made to do all the work.

Our first Chagai winter. L to R Waheed (driver/field assistant), Abdul Fareed (geologist), Mehmood (camp assistant). As they were from Karachi, they saw snow for the first time!

Saad Husain at Nushki Pass, 60 kms west of Quetta at the entrance to Chagai District.

Driving all the way back from Chagai to Karachi (over 1500 kms) with geochemical samples in this Toyota pickup. Great vehicle! Did over 250,000 kms in this terrain!

Saad on a sampling and mapping traverse using a camel, really ‘the ship of the desert’. Without camels we would not have been able to cover the 13,000 sq km reconnaissance block. Note the toposheet in my left hand, a rifle across the knees and sample bags!

Pachinkoh Camp, 40 kms north of Nokkundi, in the foreground with local settlements in the distance. 5 kms from the Afghan border with magnetite mineralization, where Saad worked from 1979 to 1982 and was also used for BHP sampling.

Tea in a traditional Balochi roadside hotel at Yakmach on the way to Reko Diq. From L to R: Abdul Fareed, Arshad Abbas, Abdul Razique, Martin Oczlon (site geologist) and Saad Husain.

Site geologist, Abdul Fareed, examining drill core at the Reko Diq camp coreshed.

Reko Diq camp site, 1997-1998.

Reko Diq exploration camp site during 1996/97 sampling program.

Western Porphyries at Reko Diq with exposed surface copper (the copper is the green tinge you see on the rocks). Identified through exploration mapping and reconnaissance work.

Koh-e-Sultan volcano, one of the main topographical features in the area.

The landscape in the Chagai Hills area. If you look carefully, you can see Neil Armstrong's footprints in the foreground.

The Reko Diq deposit is located in the Chagai Hills district in the province of Balouchistan, south-west Pakistan. This triangular wedge sits between Afghanistan to the north and the Iran to the west. When we say the area was inhospitable, this is what we meant.