Dalaroo Metals has hit the kind of surface geochemistry numbers that would make many a hard-rock driller blush, unveiling a stunning peak soil sample result of 23.26 grams per tonne (g/t) gold at its Bondoukou gold project in Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa.
The outstanding result, taken from its Gold Ridge prospect, headlined a swag of new assays that have now defined a coherent, 7-kilometre-long mineralised corridor that remains open.
Impressively, the extensive gold anomalism is backed by 529 samples grading above 25 parts per billion(ppb) gold, including 127 samples above 100ppb and 19 samples exceeding 500ppb.
The company’s latest sampling, taken from the B-Horizon soil layer at a depth of about 40cm, returned multiple high-grade hits including 3.25g/t, 2.54g/t, 2.09g/t, 1.96g/t, 1.72g/t and 1.21g/t gold.
Gold Ridge’s newly defined corridor is supported by three distinct large-scale target areas. The 1.5km-long Northern-Mag prospect hosted the stellar 23.26g/t gold hit and is defined by a 100-ppb gold contour.
The 3.5km Central-Wilfred prospect is outlined by a 50-ppb contour with peaks of 0.56g/t and 0.51g/t gold. And rounding out the trio is the 2km long and 1.2km wide Southern-Ali prospect, with a peak value of 0.71g/t gold.
Notably, the high-grade soil results align neatly with Dalaroo’s geological model. The anomaly correlates strongly with an interpreted magnetic-geophysical corridor and is associated with widespread artisanal gold workings, favourable geology and key structural controls.
Dalaroo Metals chief executive officer John Morgan said:The definition of a coherent 7- kilometre gold corridor, supported by favourable geology, geophysical signatures, widespread artisanal workings and multiple high grade soil anomalies, represent a major milestone in our understanding of the project and reinforces our confidence in the scale of the underlying mineralised system.”
The company says that the convergence of data from several surveys has provided it with a robust framework for drill targeting. Crucially, though, the new information suggests Dalaroo could be onto a significant, structurally controlled Birimian gold system, the same type that has made West Africa a world-class gold province.
The Gold Ridge postcode is hard to ignore. It sits just 35km northwest of Endeavour Mining’s Tanda-Iguela gold project – one of the most significant recent gold discoveries in Côte d’Ivoire, showcasing an impressive, indicated resource of 4.5 million ounces of gold.
The prospect also lies immediately adjacent to the Gontougo project, an earlier-stage exploration play owned by Koulou Gold, which does not yet have a defined mineral resource but importantly hosts the same geology as Tanda-Iguela.
While exploration at Bondoukou continues to yield promising results, the project is just one part of Dalaroo’s diverse exploration portfolio. The company is also advancing the Blue Lagoon rare earths, zirconium and niobium project in south-west Greenland, alongside its Lyons River and Namban projects in Western Australia.
With a compelling set of surface results now in hand at Gold Ridge, Dalaroo is wasting no time in its quest to find the bedrock source of the stunning surface mineralisation. A 5000-metre auger drilling program is already underway to better define the gold anomalism beneath any transported surface cover.
The results from the auger work will then be used to hone targets for a major 20,000-metre reverse-circulation (RC) drilling program, scheduled to kick off in July. The company says it has already locked in local contractor FTE Drilling to spearhead the campaign.
It’s rare to see soil sample results delivering grades that many explorers would be happy to pull from a drill core, let alone from a simple surface sample.
Now, with a 7km-long runway of high-grade surface anomalism that remains completely untested by RC or diamond drilling, a well-supported geological model and the “truth-divining” drill bit about to systematically test the system for the first time, Dalaroo looks set to generate a serious amount of news flow across its West African and Greenland projects over the coming months.
Is your ASX-listed company doing something interesting? Contact: matt.birney@businessnews.com.au
By Murray Ward
