Orca Gold Inc has announced an inferred maiden mineral resource estimate at the Koné Prospect, on the Morondo Licence, and closed its previously disclosed acquisition from Kinross of a highly prospective land package of 2,268 sq km in Côte dIvoire
Highlights
· The Côte d'Ivoire Exploration portfolio includes the Morondo Licence, first explored by Red Back Mining Inc. in 2010. The initial work by Red Back has been followed up by Orca leading to the discovery and definition of the Koné Prospect
· The Mineral Resource Estimate for the Koné Prospect comprises 34.1Mt grading 1.1g/t for 1.206Moz of gold at a 0.70g/t cut-off grade
· The Koné Prospect is characterized by the significant width of the mineralisation with true widths generally in excess of 150m
· The Mineral Resource Estimate extends over a strike length of 900m and to a maximum vertical depth of 260m
· The project is at early stage of evaluation and the drilling database contains 115 RC and 2 diamond holes for only 18,172m of drilling and considerable scope remains for further exploration
· The acquisition from Kinross comprises a land package of approximately 2,268km2 positioned on highly prospective structural trends related to known gold mineralization and forms a strategic portfolio for Orca's expansion in West Africa
Mineral Resource Estimate at Koné Prospect
Drilling to date at Koné totals 17,644m of reverse circulation (RC) drilling in 115 holes and 528m of diamond drilling in two holes. Koné was discovered by Red Back Mining in 2010 with 4,284m of shallow RC drilling completed. Following ministerial approval of Orca's acquisition of the project from Kinross.
The mineralised package at Koné is up to 220m in true width, dipping 50-55° to the northwest. Within this wide mineralised domain drilling has defined a series of lower angle (25-30°), higher grade structures (Figure 3) that form a core of mineralisation grading over 1.5g/t.
Mineralisation is hosted within a variably foliated diorite intrusive and is associated with biotite alteration, minor silicification, disseminated pyrite and quartz-carbonate-pyrite-chalcopyrite veining.
The Mineral Resource Estimate has been estimated within the central part of a 2.6km long gold in soil anomaly, which has been tested by 100m and closer spaced drill traverses (Figure 3). Mineralisation remains open with several low-grade intercepts received from first pass drilling to the north and little or no exploration carried out to the south. The southern margin of the resource is marked by one of the best intercepts received from Morondo in hole MRC069 which returned 41m grading 2.11g/t.
