Mineral exploration company Galileo Resources says a recently completed gold-in-soil geochemical survey in the area around the company’s Queen’s mine, near Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe, has been highly successful.

“It has clearly defined a number of targets where we have gold associated with underlying structures that extend from known mineralisation that has sustained both commercial and artisanal mining,” says chairperson and CEO Colin Bird.

The company reports that several gold-in-soil targets of up to 2.1 g/t gold (2 100 ppb) were identified. These were delineated by laboratory analyses of 2 455 samples marginal to the Queen's gold mine, which is not part of the Galileo licence area, where historical gold production of more than 440 000 oz was reported up to 1984 when reliable record-keeping ceased.

The survey also revealed a new gold-in-soil anomaly covering more than 5 km², peaking at 680 ppb gold, over a number of structures defined by airborne geophysics southeast of the Queen's mine.

Further anomalous zones along strike to the southwest from the Queen's mine deposit cluster were also identified.

Portable X-ray fluorescence analysis also shows coincident anomalies of associated elements, providing additional strong encouragement.

Galileo notes that new targets represent extensions of known gold-bearing structures that typically host both commercial and small-scale gold mining operations in the Queen's mine region.

Several drill targets will be selected ahead of the start of an evaluation programme to test gold-bearing structures at a range of depths below surface.

Further soil sampling has also been carried out to test geochemical responses over other structural targets in the area.  

“Our intention now is to prioritise anomalies with a view to the commencement of drill-testing by the end of the third quarter," says Bird.