Castle jags good Ghana gold to fuel camp-scale mission
Castle Minerals has jagged 3m at 5.2 grams per tonne gold from 125m including 1m going 10g/t from 127m in one hole – and good gold finds in another seven holes – after a nine-hole drilling campaign at its new Kpali discovery in Ghana.
The company’s latest suite of results from its project in the West African country also show that the hole with the headline hit features a longer intercept of 15m at 1.48g/t gold from 132m including 2m at 2.88g/t from 145m.
With a string of other moderate to high-grade hits in the remaining seven holes, Castle says the results from its new 1106m reverse-circulation (RC) assault on the project it discovered more than a decade ago reinforce the prospectivity of a “possibly camp-scale” operation.
Other intercepts include 4m at 3.66g/t gold from 26m including 2m at 5.89g/t from 28m and 11m at 1.86g/t from 143m (ending in mineralisation). The results also feature a 2m hit at 1.2g/t gold from 44m at Kpali East, where a previously-identified, 400m-long strike surface gold anomaly has now been shown to extend to depth.
Castle’s latest drilling represented the first phase of its planned 3500m multi-phase, 28-hole campaign that kicked off early last month. The object of the program was to follow up and extend previous open-ended gold lode-style intercepts from reconnaissance and scout drilling in the Kpali-Bundi area within the company’s 2686-square-kilometre Wa project.
The Kpali project was a virgin discovery in 2013 and arose from Castle’s systematic, wide-spaced rotary air-blast (RAB) drilling and power-auger geochemical sampling beneath a veneer of transported soil cover. That previous work included 2711 RAB holes drilled in 2013, while a further 20 RC holes were plugged into the prospect between 2013 and 2014 on eight sections to define a mineralised corridor associated with a zone of structural deformation about 30m to 50m wide.
The historic drilling returned several broad, high-grade gold intercepts and confirmed the presence of lode-style mineralisation of hydrothermal origin along a combined strike distance of at least 850m and to as deep as 100m. Better intercepts from that early work include 22m at 2.85g/t gold from 87m including 17m at 3.4g/t from 89m and 7m at 6.03g/t from 90m, while a second hole gave up 10m at 2.84g/t from 92m.
Additional hits filled out the developing picture with 14m at 2.29g/t gold from 98m including 5m at 4.53g/t from 99m and another hole bored out 16m at 3.23g/t from 9m.
The company also says “a compelling geological focal point” is offered by the convergence of two major greenstone belts – the Bole-Bolgatanga and Wa-Lawra/Boromo belts – and the proximity of three regional-scale structures. The structures include a 30km stretch of the Batie West Shear that hosts the 5.2 million-ounce Konkera gold deposit, 60km to the north-west of Kpali over the border in the adjoining country of Burkina Faso.
The second prospective structural interface is the 15km-long run of the Wa-Lawra shear zone that hosts the 1.8 million-ounce combined Kunche/Bepkong/Yagha gold deposits, 110km to the north and currently awaiting a development decision.
The third potentially important structural controlling/hosting interface lies in the presence of a 53km-long corridor within the Bole-Bolgatanga shear that hosts the 5.1 million-ounce Namdini deposit, 300km to the north-east, where mine development has already begun.
Such gold camps are typical of West Africa’s structurally-controlled orogenic gold environments and underpin the region’s status as one of the world’s most well-endowed gold regions.
Prior to kicking off the phase-one drilling campaign, Castle agreed to a cash-preserving drill-for-equity facility for up to US$100,000 (AU$148,000) with Geodrill – West Africa’s premier drilling contractor. The deal is likely to stand it in good stead as it is already planning the next phase of its 3500m drilling campaign at the Wa project on the back of its encouraging recent results.
It is worth recalling that Kpali had never been drilled prior to Castle’s discovery and that it is just one of several high-conviction prospects within the company’s regional-scale Wa project in West Africa’s renowned Upper West gold region.
Coupled with insights from mineralisation already identified, widespread surface gold anomalism and its geophysical and structural knowledge of the wider project area, it is not too difficult to envisage Castle being on the cusp of realising its dream of building a new West African gold camp in the highly-prospective region. And it is all at a time when the gold price continues to hover around all-time highs.
Source: https://thewest.com.au/