Azumah Resources: multiple new zones discovered at WA gold project

Azumah Resources is pleased to report that it has discovered multiple new zones of mineralisation with the first round of new season drilling at its 1.2Moz Wa Gold Project in north-west Ghana.

These include a promising new zone of high-grade gold-bearing quartz veining located at Kunche South East, approximately 2.5km south of the Kunche deposit, identified by rapid reconnaissance aircore drilling. Best results include 4m @ 1.44 from 32m and 4m @ 7.61 g/t Au from 44m (BAC091).  This type of drilling is a key component of Azumah's regional exploration push and is being utilised extensively throughout the project area.

Kunche South East sits off and to the east of the main Kunche-Bepkong mineralised trend and represents an entirely new target area.  Follow-up RC drilling as well as additional aircore drilling along strike to the north and south will commence shortly.

To support this broadening of Azumah's exploration strategy to evaluate a larger part of its extensive 3,200km2 licence holding, a contract has been awarded for extensions to recently completed high-resolution regional airborne aeromagnetics that will cover the remainder of Azumah's tenure.  This will provide an important structural and geological backdrop to guide exploration.  Ground based geophysical surveys (gradient array induced polarisation and dipole-dipole IP) will also be extended.  This work is scheduled to be undertaken in March 2011.

 

More shallow gold has also been identified between the Kunche and Bepkong deposits, including 17m @ 2.74 g/t Au from 30m (KRC234) and 17m @ 1.53 g/t Au from 19m (KRC231).  This new zone of mineralisation represents a high priority target and follow-up RC drilling is underway.

The new zone was discovered by the follow-up of previously reported weak gold anomalism in shallow aircore drilling (40m @ 0.53 g/t Au in KBRB171 and 4m @ 1.02 g/t Au in KBRB172), and reinforces the importance of diligently chasing up these minor gold occurrences, similar to those just encountered at Kunche South East.  It also highlights the strong prospectivity of the area and the opportunity to continue to grow resources close to key deposits.

Possible extensions of up to 150m to the current resource immediately to the north-west of the preliminary Bepkong pit have been inferred by RC drilling and include 6m @ 2.04 g/t Au from 36m (BRC182) and 3m @ 7.16 g/t Au from 47m (BRC189).  This continuation of the Bepkong resource still remains open to the north and at depth with infill and extensional drilling in this area planned for January 2011.

Strong base metal pathfinder element anomalies (lead, zinc, cobalt), the first time this metal association has been identified on the Wa Gold Project, have been returned from power auger soil samples from the new Whuling prospect and may indicate a completely new style of mineralisation to that seen at Kunche-Bepkong. These are associated with intensely sheared rocks at the contact with intrusive granite bodies, the position of which was more accurately located using Azumah's recently acquired aeromagnetic data. This also showed the sheared contact zones to be extensive.  Gold assays are pending.

Azumah is utilising its newly commissioned, vehicle-mounted, power auger drilling rig combined with the latest hand-held, instant analysis XRF technology to provide on-the-spot geochemical targeting for follow-up drill testing.  A second power auger rig and two additional XRF analysers have been purchased and are on their way to site.

Azumah has also commenced infill drilling of the mineralisation captured in its preliminary Kunche and Bepkong pit designs in line with the current feasibility study timeframe (refer ASX release dated 15th December 2010).  Results received to date include 17m @ 2.43 g/t Au from 19m (BRC197) and typically reinforce the integrity of the existing resource model at Bepkong.  Further infill drilling to approximately 25m x 25m will be completed in the first quarter of 2011.

Azumah has completed over 30,000 metres of combined RC, diamond and aircore drilling since the commencement of the new season's field activities in late September 2010.  There are three drilling rigs presently on site (RC, aircore and auger) of which the RC and aircore rigs work double shifts.  An additional two rigs (RC and auger) are scheduled to arrive early in 2011.  Site staff, including the recruitment of an additional twelve Ghanaian geologists, plus associated support infrastructure have been substantially increased accordingly.

The results presented in this release represent assays from the first batches of samples submitted for analysis, with more results expected to flow through shortly.  Shareholders can therefore expect a steady stream of exploration results based news flow commencing early in 2011 and continuing throughout the year.

Azumah has a large and growing pipeline of drill targets to investigate that are associated with possible extensions to its flagship deposits or are in the vicinity of these as well as many being generated from its expanding reconnaissance exploration thrust. The Company estimates that over 90% of its mostly contiguous tenure at Wa  has yet to be adequately explored.

Other than at Whuling, several extensive targets generated from preliminary interpretations of recently acquired geophysical data are also yet to be tested (refer ASX release dated 27th October 2010).  Detailed interpretations of this geophysical data by specialist consultants are due shortly and are likely to propose a number of new specific targets also for follow-up in the New Year.

"The identification of new zones of shallow gold at Kunche South East are a high note on which to end what has been an extremely successful year for the Company," Azumah Managing Director Stephen Stone said.  "The discovery of more gold between the flagship Kunche and Bepkong deposits as well as extensions to the Bepkong deposit itself are also extremely positive developments.

"A key feature of 2011 will be a substantial ramp-up in exploration over the broader but no less prospective part of Azumah's massive and contiguous land holding in north-west Ghana.  We are confident that the combination of our new power auger rigs, hand-held on-the-spot XRF analysis technology and our growing team of Ghanaian geologists will deliver many new regional targets and hopefully more discoveries."

This article was originally posted on East Africa Business Communities

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