Preparing For Follow-Up Drilling Campaign In Ethiopia
Ethiopian focused gold explorer Megado Gold(ASX:MEG) has uncovered outcropping quartz veins with visible gold ahead of the maiden drill programme at the company’s Chakata Gold Project.
Chakata is located in the Adola Gold Belt in southern Ethiopia, only five kilometres south along strike from the country’s largest producing gold mines, Lega Dembi and Sakaro (+3Moz).
The structure that hosts the Lega Dembi/Sakaro trend, extends to the south through Chakata for over 9km and is readily identifiable in geophysical imagery.
CEO and Managing Director, Michael Gumbley, said Megado geologists’ fieldwork has continued to confirm strong evidence of artisanal workings and indications of significant occurrences of primary hard rock gold.
“Our review of the 1990’s historical work conducted had already confirmed Chakata as incredibly prospective,” Mr Gumbley said.
“Now that the team has been able to commence early works, they report a massive, extensive quartz tourmaline vein to the southwest of the GT Prospect, we are keen to start testing our high priority targets. Artisanal miners are currently manually excavating the vein in and around the GT Prospect
“As soon as we have completed the maiden drilling program at Babicho, the drill rig will be deployed to Chakata to immediately test the GT Prospect as well as other compelling targets.”
Mr Gumbley said that importantly for Megado, historical exploration has provided walk-up drill ready targets in addition to targets delineated by Megado geologists. Historical trenching at Chakata’s GT Prospect returned an impressive 47m @ 1.55g/t Au, including 25m @ 2.57g/t, with no known drill testing at depth beneath the trench or along strike.
Megado’s team has mobilised to site to complete the work required to prepare rig access and drill pads in order to commence execution of its phase one drilling program at Chakata. This will occur immediately upon the conclusion of the drilling program at the Company’s other premium gold project, Babicho.
Megado believes there is significant potential for repeat, blind, high-grade plunging shoots, characteristically similar to the Sakaro deposit, within a locally north-northeast divergent 2.5km+ strike length structural splay at the GT Prospect.
Fieldwork is ongoing, with geologists observing several styles of gold mineralisation. Consequently, the Ethiopian team has identified a multitude of new targets in addition to the granodiorite target and others identified historically, most of which are coincident with spectral targets identified by Megado. Previous exploration efforts at Chakata do not appear to have adequately led to a full understanding of its mineralisation potential, resulting in minimal drilling of what appear to be obvious high priority prospects.
Of the limited historical drilling previously conducted within the tenement, intercept highlights include: 2m @ 11.15g/t Au and 0.6m @ 6.47g/t Au.
