Wenot Deposit Drilling Completed
Omai Gold Mines Corp. (TSXV: OMG) has commenced exploration on the East Wenot Extension and on the Broccoli Hill target, at the Omai property in Guyana.
The current drilling programme that focused on the Wenot deposit beneath the past producing pit, has now been completed. The program consisted of 16 holes totalling 9,367m, with final assay results pending. P&E Mining Consultants are engaged as the independent Qualified Person and have commenced the Wenot resource study. This allows the technical team to initiate a broader exploration program on the Omai property to include drilling the extension of the Wenot deposit to the east, plus the Broccoli Hill target, both located near the past-producing pits.
East Wenot Extension
The Wenot Shear Corridor is part of a wide east-west trending gold-mineralised geological structure with three km of drill-indicated strike length across the property. The Wenot pit, covering roughly 1.7 km of the strike length of this structure, produced 1.4 million ounces of gold1 to a depth of 190m.
CEO, Elaine Ellingham, said like the classic regional shear structures that host many of central Canada’s significant gold mines, several episodes of crustal deformation were focused along this shear structure creating permeable fracturing to significant depths, that allowed hydrothermal fluids to invade and deposit gold within the open fractures and breaks.
Drilling is scheduled to start in mid-November, to explore the eastern extension of the Wenot shear. Work will commence from the eastern end of the pit (~306000E) and continue along an initial 800 metres, following the trend of the shear.
This area has seen no commercial mining, however abundant pitting in the surficial alluvial material attests to gold that has attracted small scale miners. Significant gold mineralisation has been identified in this area by several shallow holes drilled along this trend from 1993-95 but testing to depths of only 50 to 75 metres into fresh rock.
Gold was intersected on ten 50-metre spaced section lines, with the best intersections (west to east) including 21m @ 1.3 g/t Au (306130E), 27 m @ 3.6 g/t Au (in saprolite), 9 m @ 2.6 g/t Au (306380E) and 15m @ 1.9 g/t Au(306530E).
Since the holes were short, they did not fully test the width of the shear corridor in this area, nor the depth extent of the gold mineralisation. The drilling, scheduled to commence in mid-November, will focused on expanding the known mineralization and evaluating the potential for a near-surface economic deposit in this area.
Broccoli Hill
Broccoli Hill (BH) is a conspicuous hill that sits less than 300 metres east of the Fennell pit and 300m north of the Wenot pit. Combined, these two pits produced over 3.7 million ounces of gold1. BH has been an attraction for artisanal miners for over 100 years and has seen minor surficial exploration for several decades.
Previous auger and soil surveys have identified numerous gold anomalies on BH, including one auger hole that sampled 12.4 g/t Au from a four to six metres depth in saprolite adjacent to a large area of pork knocker (artisanal miner) activity.
The abundance of past placer gold workings in the lowlands flanking the hill, together with the numerous scattered artisanal workings on the hill itself suggests a gold source somewhere on BH. It is a very compelling target, interestingly, with little to no drilling.
Airborne geophysics completed in 2020 shows a magnetic-low signature over BH, a characteristic of the adjacent Fennell deposit.
At Fennell, gold occurs within a series of relatively flat lying structures within a quartz diorite plug known as the “Omai Stock”, with a diameter at surface of roughly 400m.
At Zijin’s Aurora Mine, located approximately 200 km northwest of Omai, their Rory’s Knoll gold deposit which is often compared to the Omai stock, has a footprint only 200m in diameter. Broccoli Hill, covering an area of about 500m by 700m, with the underlying bedrock still of unknown affinities, certainly has the potential to host such a deposit.
Field work at Broccoli Hill commenced in late September with trenching and mapping to investigate the underlying geology, in order to better identify drill targets. The tropical environment of Guyana creates a pervasive thick saprolite weathering and often an overlying ferruginous laterite that effectively conceal and mask bedrock geology.
The excavator on site was sent to Broccoli Hill to open up trenches and some of the old roads, and to develop a trail along the ridge crest. The work was done to improve access and to expose saprolite for mapping and sampling.
The trenching was successful at exposing saprolite and a significant area was found to have an abundance of quartz crystals or grains in the ferricrete. It is possible that these quartz grains, which appear to be floating in the ferruginous matrix of hematite, goethite and jarosite, and in some exposures could represent a residual texture of a quartz-rich intrusive underlying portions of Broccoli Hill.
It is also possible that a Fennell-type intrusive may not come to surface and would require deeper drilling. Two to three drill holes, planned for late this year, will target some of the best gold anomalies in the soil and auger sampling, areas of pork knocker workings and areas possibly underlain by granitic intrusives. These initial drill holes will provide valuable information on the bedrock underlying BH to direct further drilling.
Fennell Target
Fennell is one of primary targets on the Omai property, based on results of a 46-drill hole exploration program completed by Iamgold in 2007. This drilling identified a significant gold deposit beneath the past producing pit.
The Fennell pit produced 2.4 million ounces between 1993 and 2004. It was mined to a depth of 250m where it bottomed at a barren diabase sill. After production ceased, Iamgold completed the exploration beneath the sill and completed a resource report.
Impressive results included 43 intersections of over 1.0 oz/ton over one metre, as well as a few samples with over 1000 oz/ton Au over one metre. This drilling reached a maximum depth of about 960m with the deepest holes ending in mineralization, suggesting even further depth potential.
Omai has started modelling this historic data and plans to initiate a drill program on the Fennell target in Q2 of next year. This work will require deeper holes to verify the historic resource (to be NI 43-101 compliant) and to explore the depth extent of this mineralization.
“Completing the drilling to support the Wenot resource study is quite an achievement for the new Omai team. With this accomplished, we are very excited to step out to explore some of the other prime near-mine targets. Areas such as Broccoli Hill and East Wenot have excellent potential for both significant new discoveries and for expanding known zones of mineralisation,” Ms Ellingham said.
“Wenot East is one of those areas where limited historic drilling identified very interesting gold mineralisation, but was not pursued. These offer great opportunities for us to test the extent of these zones and assess their economic potential.
“We expect to begin drilling the East Wenot Extension and to complete a couple of initial holes at Broccoli Hill before the holiday break in December.”
For further information please visit: https://www.omaigoldmines.com/
