London- and Toronto-listed exploration and development company Solgold has begun scout drilling at the Blanca project, marking the establishment of advanced exploration in Ecuador's newest copper/gold province.
In a drilling update on Friday, the company said that a man-portable drill machine had been on site in the Carchi province since mid-September. The machine had completed two diamond drill holes for 800 m, testing the sub-horizontal veins, up to 0.4 m wide, containing up to 617 g/t gold.
The Phase 1 drilling programme comprises a suite of initial drill holes to test high grade polymetallic gold-telluride veins within the Cielito vein system, as well as a second suite of drill holes to test gold-stockwork veining at the Cerro Quiroz dome.
Solgold said the first hole intersected a 30-cm-wide quartz vein containing visible gold and rich in chalcopyrite and pyrite at a down-hole depth of 98 m.
“The first 150 m is characterised by andesites and volcanic breccias with multiple zones of thin sulphide-rich veins and mineralised fault zones. Chlorite-epidote propylitic alteration increases in strength at depth possibly signifying proximity to a source intrusion.”
Visible gold was also noted in the second hole, drilled on the same section as the first, but at a shallower dip. This hole also intersected multiple zones of flat dipping, thin sulphide rich quartz veins in the first 170 m.
Solgold said that structural correlation between the holes supported the conceptual model of a system of stacked mineralised quartz veins at the Cielito prospect.
The Cielito Vein System is interpreted to represent multiple stacked gold lenses over a 500 m by 400 m zone, and drilling was intended to intercept these lenses, as well as potential sub-vertical high-grade feeder zones.