West Africa-focused explorer Oriole Resources has identified five Priority 1 gold zones in the east of its 90%-owned Central Licence Package (CLP) in central Cameroon, where its teams are undertaking systematic and cost-effective exploration.

The district-scale CLP comprises of eight contiguous licences covering 3 592 km² of Paleo-Proterozoic to Pan-African age rocks that are highly prospective for orogenic-style gold mineralisation.

Ranking of an initial 18 targets in the east of the CLP has identified five Priority 1 zones (Tenekou, Niambaram, Pokor, Ndom and Mbe) for follow-up soil sampling.

Together with a further three new licences – Mana, Dogon and Sanga – granted to Reservoir Minerals Cameroon, in which Oriole has subsequently earned a 90% interest, the CLP as a whole covers a contiguous, district-scale land package of 3 592 km².

Covering Paleo-Proterozoic to Pan-African rocks – a well-known host for orogenic gold deposits worldwide – the CLP licences were initially targeted by Oriole’s technical team because of their apparent proximity to the dominant regional structure – the Tcholliré-Banyo shear zone (TBSZ), a major southwest-northeast-trending splay off the larger-scale Central African Shear Zone.

The TBSZ and its associated shears, thrusts and faults are, according to academic literature, thought to be one of the significant structural controls for gold and other mineralisation in the region.

In the third quarter of the year, Oriole completed a first-pass regional mapping and stream sediment sampling over the five easternmost licences that identified 18 initial targets of greater than 30 parts per billion (ppb) of gold and delivered grades of up to 291 ppb of gold.

Oriole’s team has subsequently generated a topographic and hydrological map to enable a detailed review and ranking of those targets.

Five Priority 1 gold zones have been identified for follow-up by semi-regional soil sampling at a spacing of 400 m by 200 m. In these zones, the team believes there is a high probability that the anomalous samples are directly related to the adjacent major TBSZ-related structures that are outcropping over relative topographic highs.

This more direct exploration technique will test structures related to the main TBSZ and aims to outline broad gold-in-soil anomalies that will help guide more targeted programmes in 2022.

The first grid will be completed over a pilot area that covers the east of the Ndom and Mbe permits and the core of this zone, which ranked the highest overall, will also include a higher resolution sampling grid of 400 m by 100 m.

Sampling of the pilot area is expected to be completed before the end of the year, with initial gold results expected early in the first quarter of 2022.

Sampling over the remaining grids will continue into early 2022, and further testing over Priority 2 gold zones will be subject to ongoing results.

Oriole CEO Tim Livesey says the initial gold results from the five easternmost CLP licences have enabled the company to confirm a substantial area of structural complexity, where at least two main trends or corridors of mineralisation are evident, one broadly following the TBSZ and one approximately perpendicular to this, trending northwest.

“The multiple gold anomalies identified within a number of coincident drainage basins associated with these trends, gives us great confidence that this new exploration district has the potential to yield multiple targets along these gold corridors, as we expected following our early prospectivity work in 2019.”