Ethiopia-focused explorer Megado Gold, which recently listed on the ASX, reports that, with its ongoing fieldwork at its Babicho gold project in the Adola gold belt in southern Ethiopia, strong evidence of artisanal workings and indications of significant occurrences of primary hard rock gold have been unearthed.

Most significantly, the team has completed a series of important preparatory steps, which will culminate in Megado’s maiden drill programme at the project commencing next week.

Megado holds five high-quality gold exploration assets covering 511 km² and one licence application covering 227 km² in southern and western Ethiopia, respectively, with the geological potential to host gold deposits of significant scale.

The miner reports that historical soil sampling at Babicho conducted in the late 1990s delineated a coherent and highly significant 2-km-long gold-in-soil anomaly that coincides with the major north-south trending shear zone that hosts the Lega Dembi and Sakaro gold deposits.

Within the 2-km-long soil anomaly, preliminary work included only four trenches and four shallow drill holes, with standout results headlined by 1 m of gold at a grade of 35.3 g/t in trenching.

Megado CEO and MD Michael Gumbley says the company’s six full-time Ethiopian geologists have successfully accelerated Megado’s exploration programme such that its initial Babicho drilling campaign will start next week.

The current geological mapping and sampling programmes have delivered a far deeper understanding of the local geology. Programmes executed to date have greatly assisted the planning and execution of Babicho’s maiden drilling programme, confirming the company’s thesis that Babicho is a highly prospective asset.

Further, he says that while historical exploration programmes produced encouraging results and high gold grades, Megado firmly believes that previous companies misinterpreted the geology and structural controls to the gold mineralisation.

“We are incredibly fortunate that Megado’s staff have had extensive hands-on experience at the nearby Lega Dembi and Sakaro gold deposits. Our team has been able to apply their extensive knowledge of these along-strike deposits to inform our strategy for the drilling programme at Babicho.”

Megado’s fieldwork, including campaigns of geological and structural mapping and surface sampling to confirm and expand upon the historical data, has delineated a number of compelling drill targets for the company’s upcoming maiden drilling programme.

This sampling highlighted the coarse nature of the gold, with significant quantities of gold grains and flakes reporting to gold panning during sampling.

In addition to the historical gold-in-soil anomaly and numerous spectral targets, Megado fieldwork continues to identify numerous additional targets of significant interest within the Babicho tenement, which will be the subject of future work programmes including additional trenching and follow-up drilling.