Marvel Gold Ltd (ASX:MVL) and partner Oklo Resources Ltd (ASX:OKU) have delivered strong bedrock gold mineralisation in a reconnaissance auger drilling program at the Kolondieba joint venture in southeast Mali.
The Kolondieba Project is held under a joint venture in which Marvel holds 80% and Oklo the remainder.
Three standout targets have yielded gold over one kilometre of strike length and several hundred metres across, with numerous intersections greater than 0.5 g/t observed in five of the 11 targets tested.
Furthermore, 10 auger holes returned more than 1 g/t gold with a peak value of 2.35 /t.
The Kolondieba auger samples will provide a multi-element geochemical data that will enhance the understanding of the geology at Kolondieba, the results of which will inform the drill targeting process.
“Next major discovery”
Marvel managing director Chris van Wijk said: “We are extremely pleased with the results of our recent auger drilling campaign at Kolondieba which has multiple holes carrying over 1 g/t gold – exceptional results for auger drilling.
“We have been systematically de-risking Kolondieba over successive phases of exploration, with this latest phase of auger drilling pointing to multiple areas of in-situ bedrock mineralisation present across the project area.
“Kolondieba has all the right ingredients for the next major discovery in the area.”
Reconnaissance drilling
At Kolondieba, a total of 1,354 holes were drilled across 11 targets, all of which returned bedrock gold anomalism.
Auger drilling is a rapid and cost-effective reconnaissance drilling technique used to test the bedrock to confirm that gold-in-soil anomalies are sourced from the underlying geology and that they have not been transported.
This drilling was conducted as a follow-up to a previous soil sampling program which defined strong and largely coherent gold anomalism passing through the centre of the Kolondieba permit.
The strongest gold-in-soil anomalies were drill tested; however, several other soil anomalies remain untested. Of the targets drilled, many remain open along strike.
Kolondieba auger drilling results.
Forward plan
The Kolondieba auger samples will now be analysed in-house by the company’s portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) machine.
A high-resolution gradient array-induced polarisation survey is planned over targets one to four covering a combined area of about 13 square kilometres.
The results of this survey, in conjunction with the auger drilling assay data, will help to better define follow-up targets for reverse circulation drilling.
