There are many copper occurrences but most are small and low - grade. The more important environments for these occurrences are associations with felsic volcanic rocks in the Archaean greenstone belts. The literature contains only scanty descriptions. Some of the more important examples are mentioned below.

Kamba Hill Prospect.

Kamba hill lies on the east bank of the Mara River in the Mara greenstone belt, about 6.5 km south of the Old Mara Gold Mine.Copper occurs n the gold bearing Kamba Reef, which follows the granite contact south of the East Mara Gabbro complex. The average width is 2.2 m, with copper and gold values ranging up to 2.3% and 8.5 g/t respectively. Copper occurs as chalcopyrite and as chalcolite and oxides in the oxides zone.

Bulyanhulu Mine.

The mine is a copper deposit with high gold values averaging 15 g/t, consists of gold - silver - copper - bearing quartz - sulphide veins. The average grade of copper is 0.52 % and silver is 11.4 g/t in mineable resource of 13.64 Mt. Barrick Corporation is now operating the resource as a gold mine and producing copper as a by product. The average content annual production of copper concentrate is 25,000 tonnes with 12% copper content.

Samena.
This pyrite - pyrrhotite body was discovered by the British Overseas Geological Survey during a 1959 - 1963 mineral exploration programme. It lies in the Geita greenstone belt, in intermediate to felsic lavas, with lesser albitised tuffs and BIF. The sulphur content is 13 to 26%. Resources are inferred to be in the order of 200 Mt. The potential for copper mineralisation is favourable. Samena could represent a Cyprus - type massive sulphide (Cox and Singer, 1986, mode 24a) or a related massive sulphide type.

In 1998, Tanganyika Gold carried out further exploration work and described the ore body to have a 13:7 pyrite - pyrrhotite ratio and to contain minor copper, lead, zinc and gold.

Nzega East Greenstone Belt Prospects.

No economic occurrences of Zinc Mineralisation have been reported. The potential is high particularly in the greenstone belts, which remain relatively unprospected for base metals. Several prospects lie in the eastern part of the Nzega greenstone belt, including Wela Hill, Wela North, Manyavu, Mwamela and Ngulu Hills. Perhaps it is significant that the Nzega greenstone belt contains a higher proportion of felsic volcanic rocks than the more northerly greenstone belts. This belt includes a package of BIF, Cherts and felsic volcanic rocks (some with developed gossans) overlying basaltic volcanic rocks in what is probably the core of an anticlinorium.

Several gossan localities and geophysical anomalies located during the countrywide airborne located during the countrywide airborne geophysical surveys were drilled by the Minerals Division in the Nzega area in 1981 - 1982. Zinc mineralisation was encountered in several drill holes, with intersections reported as high as 4.6% zinc over 6.5 m. Ground geophysics and further drilling might locate additional resources.