Context setting overview lecture in Lubumbashi  -  Following the Zambian Copperbelt segment of the tour, the ongoing group departed Ndola on the morning of Saturday 10 May to fly to Lubumbashi in southern DRC, be processed on arrival and to settle in to their hotel, the Grand Karavia. Sunday 11 May was a rest and study day, where the group had an opportunity to recuperate after the early starts and long days of the preceeding week, catch up on their notes and to read-up on the deposits to be visited in an equally busy week ahead in the DRC. New starters had joined in Ndola and rendezvoused with the group in Lubumbashi.
  During the mid- to late afternoon of Sunday 11 May, the group was given a lecture at the Grand Karavia by Professor Louis Kipata, Head of the Department of Geology, University of Lubumbashi, on the geology and structure of the Lufilian Arc and the Congolese section of the Central African Copperbelt. In addition, he brought a suite of specimens of the key lithologies of the sequence that hosts the major sediment hosted copper-cobalt deposits of the Congolese Copperbelt for the group to study, following the lecture. He was assisted by Dr Pascal Mambwe Matanda of the same department. Professor Kipata is pictured above (to the left in the lower right image) with Dr Jacques Batumike of Rio Tinto Exploration, who studied at Lubumbashi University and assisted with securing the lecture by Professor Kipata. This well-reasoned and very interesting presentation provided an excellent context to the deposits to be visted over the following week.   Photograph by Mike Porter.