From: Eri News (er_news@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Nov 05 2009 - 20:39:42 EST
Gold exploration potential in Eritrea upgraded
By: Petronel Smit
Published: 6th November 2009
Global gold company Chalice Gold Mines has upgraded the regional
exploration potential at its 80%-owned 944 000-oz Zara gold project,
in Eritrea, East Africa, after completing the first phase of a
regional exploration programme.
Chalice retained remote sensing con-sultant Earthscan to undertake an
inter-pretation of satellite imagery covering the Proterozoic
sedimentary and volcanic formations in north-western Eritrea, the
prospective stratigraphy which hosts the Koka and Bisha deposits.
The study area, covering over 35 000 km2, centred on the company’s
615-km2 Zara project, which is located 165 km north of the capital,
Asmara.
Satellite company Landsat’s enhanced thematic mapper satellite data
was computer-enhanced to highlight geological outcrops, regolith
landforms, structural features and mineral alteration zones within
the study area, which lies along major north-west-trending structural
corridors.
Signatures of known gold and base metal mineral occurrences were used
to identify similar signatures elsewhere within the targeted
terrains. The target zones were then ranked using various parameters.
Within the Zara project area, the inter-pretation identified over 60
anomalies with spectral signatures indicative of alteration or iron
enrichment commonly associated with known gold or base metals
mineralisation in the region, including the company’s Koka gold
deposit. The anomalies are indicative of gold or base metal targets
on the 615-km2 tenement area outside the current resource base at the
Koka deposit, with an indicated and inferred resource of 5,04-million
tons at 5,8 g/t gold for 944 000 oz of ore.
This provides a strong pipeline of regional exploration opportunities
with the potential to yield new discoveries within a 25-km radius of
a potential future mining operation at Zara, where Chalice is
currently completing a scoping study.
Iron-rich anomalies were also interpreted within the newly granted
Zara South permit, where ground follow-up has identified large iron-
oxide-rich rocks derived from the weathering of massive sulphides,
called gossans. The gossans are associated with altered and pyritised
rhyolites and cherty pyritic exhalites in a rock assemblage typical
of volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) mineralisation. It lies
within interpreted northerly extensions of the volcanic stratigraphy,
hosting the Bisha polymetallic VHMS deposit, about 100 km to the south.
Chalice Gold plans to progress with the evaluation, ranking and
exploration of the regional targets. Immediate exploration plans
include the acquisition and analysis of high-resolution Aster
satellite imagery, geological mapping and regional drainage
geochemical sampling.
The regional exploration strategy will be advanced together with
forthcoming programmes of infill and resource exten-sion drilling at
the Koka deposit, as well as the completion of the prefeasibility and
feasibility studies.
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