Exploration work at the Daro copper/gold project, in northern Ethiopia, has produced promising results at the Teklil prospect and a significant gold-bearing quartz vein at the Keren prospect has been discovered, while stream sediment analysis has defined new target areas for exploration, Aim- and TSX-listed exploration company Altus Strategies CE Steven Poulton said on Tuesday.
“Exploration at Daro is continuing to yield exciting results, with high gold and copper assays returning from a number of surface sampling programmes, including 37 g/t gold and 22.7% copper,” he said.
The presence of gossans, polymetallic mineralisation, significant artisanal gold workings and favourable host geology continues to indicate the potential for a volcanogenic massive sulphide discovery within Daro.
Rock-chip sampling at the Teklil prospect has returned results of 4.4 g/t gold from quartzite and 11.6% copper from metamudstone in the immediate hanging wall of a newly discovered gossan.
As previously reported in April, a sample of gossan float from Teklil assayed at 34% copper. Follow-up exploration in the vicinity of this sample has discovered in-situ gossanous material, a sample of which has assayed 6.95% copper and 1.06 g/t gold.
Another sample of gossanous float collected in this area has assayed 22.7% copper and 6.51 g/t gold. The gossan zone at Teklil has now been mapped discontinuously for about 900 m and is up to 15 m wide.
Further, stream sediment samples located about 750 m to the north of the Teklil prospect have returned anomalous gold (including 9 ppb gold and 6 ppb gold), which when coupled with a 4.4 g/t gold sample of outcrop in the vicinity, indicate that the prospect remains open to the north, said Poulton.
Exploration following up on anomalous stream sediment results (including 111 ppb gold and 76 ppb gold), has discovered the Keren prospect, located about 9 km southeast of the Teklil prospect.
A sample of quartz float at Keren has assayed 37 g/t gold, while multiple rock chips have returned values greater than 0.5 g/t gold and up to 10.35 g/t gold.
Six zones of east-northeast and west-southwest striking discontinuous and sub-parallel quartz veining and stockworks have been mapped at Keren to date, with each zone being mapped as between 25 m and 300 m wide within a 2 km area of interest.
“With the discovery of the Keren prospect containing a gold-bearing quartz vein and stockwork system, our next phase of work will include mapping and selective channel and soil sampling programmes,” concluded Poulton.