Drilling results for Aim-listed West Africa-focused gold exploration company African Mining & Exploration’s (AME’s) Kossanto gold project, in western Mali, have produced sufficient grade and width, giving the company confidence that it would be able to define an initial mineral resource later this year, says AME CEO Mark Jones.

AME announced positive results from its first phase 3.136 m drilling programme in February.

Jones explains that drilling was primarily focused on the Gourbassi East target, with the results suggesting that the area has significant future resource upside, with gold mineralisation occurring within a 900-m-long zone, which remains open in both directions.

“In tandem with results from Gourbassi East, drilling results taken from our secondary target area, Gourbassi West, indicate the continuity of gold mineralisation along a 1 km corridor and further exploration will be conducted in this area to further assess the project’s larger resource potential,” he says.

The 3.136 m reverse circulation (RC) drilling programme, which focused on the Gourbassi East and Gourbassi West target areas, 7 km from each other, was completed in December.

According to an AME media release, the drilling programme was designed to achieve two primary objectives.

The first objective was to define sufficient grade and tonnage for an initial mineral resource estimate at the Gourbassi East target area.
To achieve this, 28 RC holes, totalling 2.246 m, were drilled in the target area to depths of between 50 m and 130 m, all inclined at a –55º angle. Collar spacing between new and old holes in this area was narrowed, where possible, to about 25 m apart and, for a better assessment of the mineralised orebody, scissor holes were drilled at 50 m intervals.
Drilling to date has identified that the mineralisation at Gourbassi East is formed of steep-dipping pervasive alteration-style silica and is disseminated, with gold grades generally increasing towards a clear resistive axis following a lithological contact between a rhyolite and a rhyodacite structure.

The drilling also indicated the continuity and quality of the mineralisation along a 900 m strike length. AME refined the geological model for the target area and believes that an initial resource estimate could be defined in the first half of this year.

The second objective was to gain a better understanding of the mineralisation at the Gourbassi West target.

Ten holes, totalling 889 m, were drilled in this area, all inclined at a –60º angle. Import- antly, these drill results indicated the con- tinuity of mineralisation along a 1 km corridor, which ground and aerial geophysics had previously suggested.

“These impressive gold intercepts highlight the exciting upside potential of our flagship Kossanto gold project. We will continue to explore the project to define a maiden resource and, in turn, economic prospectivity,” Jones says.