ASX-listed West Africa gold explorer, Mako Gold, has been buoyed by the latest bonanza gold drill hits at its majority-owned Napie gold project in Côte d’Ivoire and says the exciting Tchaga prospect has the makings of a significant gold discovery. The Brisbane-based company uncovered a high-grade near-surface extension to a previously encountered auriferous zone at Tchaga courtesy of a recent change in the direction of its drilling. One of the stand-out gold intersections from four RC holes as part of its continuing 10,000m RC and diamond drill campaign was 32m going 7.1 grams per tonne gold from 13m including 9m at 22.73 g/t from 36m.
The 9m grading 22.73 g/t assay takes in a cracking intercept of 2m at 92.95 g/t from 36m, which in turn includes 1m at 143.6 g/t or 4.6 ounces of gold to the tonne. Other notable intersections were 4m at 14.26 g/t from 33m including 1m at 51.11 g/t from 33m, and 15m at 3.59 g/t from 16m including 1m at 31.66 g/t from 26m.
Mako points out the discovery of the stacked gold-rich lenses came after the four holes were drilled in the revised south-east drilling orientation resulting from recent mineralisation modelling. It says the latest high-grade hits vindicate the recent change in drilling direction and have led to multiple new high-priority targets.
Further drilling is planned to vector in on the areas around this newly unearthed structure as Mako looks to maximise the potential size of the high-grade mineralised zone. The company hopes the drill data from this testing will be incorporated into a maiden mineral resource estimate, which is earmarked for completion in the March 2021 quarter.
Mako Gold Managing Director, Peter Ledwidge said: “Following our recent technical reviews and subsequent change in drilling direction, we are highly encouraged by the results returned from drilling in this zone where we had previously received assays of 13m at 20.82 g/t gold and 18m at 3.25 g/t gold. Much of our previous west to east drilling in this zone would have only grazed the mineralisation or missed it altogether.”
“Our recent modelling has indicated multiple highly prospective areas that remain undrilled, therefore we will be prioritising drilling in the short term to drill along strike and extend the high-grade zone.”
“These new results provide the company with confidence as we move towards targeting a maiden resource on the Tchaga prospect. When you consider that we have multiple prospects to the north, south and east with previously reported high gold-bearing intercepts, we consider that the Tchaga prospect has the makings of a significant gold discovery.”
Gold mineralisation within the Tchaga prospect is associated with northeast-southwest trending, cross-cutting structures where the stacked lenses occur. The company says the new south-east drilling orientation is ideal for intersecting gold mineralisation on the northeast-southwest trend.
According to Mako, the stacked lenses are open in all directions and significant strike length remains to be drill tested.
Drilling to extend the strike length of the new high-grade zone is currently in progress, while the company is also set to fire up a second drill rig early next month that is slated to test what it describes as the highly prospective nearby regional prospects of Gogbala, Tchaga North and Tchaga East.
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By Matt Birney
