Mar 27 2015
Medgold Resources Corp. is pleased to provide an exploration update on the Lagares gold project. The project is joint ventured to Centerra Gold Inc., who are earning in to 51% of the project by spending $3 million over 3 years, and have the right to earn an additional 19% by spending a further $3 million over 2 years.
The project is progressing rapidly. Medgold's first drilling campaign in Portugal, a 3,000 metre diamond core drilling program, started yesterday targeting high-grade gold mineralization identified from recent channel-chip sampling. A grid-controlled soil sampling program has also been completed, and has identified a broad gold anomaly, extending both north and south along strike and away from the known zones of mineralization.
Dan James, the President of Medgold, said, "We are all looking forward to starting our drilling at the Lagares project. This is the first drilling program for Medgold in Portugal, and the first exploration campaign with our new partner, Centerra. Since we acquired Lagares in early 2014, we have taken time to fully review the geological potential of the project and the region. Our new geological model has added significant exploration upside to the project, and the recent soil sampling results are very positive as they provide further confirmation that the mineralized system continues along strike of the main gold-associated structure."
Lagares Property
The Lagares property is one of four licences within the Valongo Belt and currently under joint venture (JV) with Centerra. Under the terms of the JV, which was announced in December 2014, Centerra has the initial option to spend $3 million on exploration to earn 51% in the project. The first phase of significant work under the JV is the proposed program of 3,000 metres of diamond drilling. The program started yesterday, with an initial priority phase of drilling at the Castromil and Serra da Quinta mineralized zones. Early drilling will include a few 'twin' boreholes which are intended to check the grade of gold mineralization that was intersected by historical drill-holes. A comparison will also be done of gold recovery characteristics of the mineralization intersected by the drill-hole 'twins'. Focus of the drilling will then turn to testing the down-dip continuation of gold mineralization at the Castromil and Serra da Quinta prospects which occurs as a stacked set of shallowly east-dipping tabular lenses of silicified granite that, overall, follow the faulted contact between the granite and metamorphosed sedimentary rocks.
Previous work done by Medgold on the Lagares property includes a contiguous surface channel-chip sampling, comprising 800 samples from 732 metres of sampling over 9 channel lines, where 8 of 9 channel lines yielded significant gold mineralization. Highlights of this sampling program were previously reported in a press release dated December 02, 2014, with full details on our website, including the channel results shown here:
- 69.00 m @ 4.15 g/t Au (line 150)
- 40.70 m @ 5.73 g/t Au, including 5.20 m @ 15.50 g/t Au (line 300)
- 15.50 m @ 9.44 g/t Au, including 4.00 m @ 18.00 g/t Au (line 300)
- 4.60 m @ 36.17 g/t Au (from underground sampling, reported in June 03, 2014)
To date, several phases of drilling have been completed on the property by previous owners. The majority of the historical drill-holes are relatively short, averaging less than 50 metres in length. The depth potential of the mineralization is essentially unknown and testing this potential will be a priority objective of this drilling program. Several of the planned holes will be drilled up to 250 metres down-hole.
Field crews also completed grid-controlled soil geochemistry surveys over areas to the northwest and southeast of the main Castromil and Serra da Quinta prospects.. This work follows the recent observation of continuous gold-hosting mineralized rock along strike for 4 kilometres. Six percent of the soil samples that were submitted returned assay values greater than 0.5 g/t Au, with values from trace to highs of 6.37 g/t Au, 4.06 g/t Au and 4.04 g/t Au.
The soil survey results defined three principal zones of interest:
- At Castromil North, soil samples containing greater than 0.2 g/t Au have defined a semi-linear, 600 metre long, east-west trending anomaly that is also marked by As and Pb soil anomalies. This soil survey anomaly is broadly coincident with an area where loose blocks of mineralized rock yielded samples that assayed from 0.016 g/t Au up to 16.32 g/t Au.
- In the southern end of the Serra da Quinta prospect, beyond any historical drilling, the recently completed soil survey outlined a pronounced Au-As-Pb anomaly that covers an area of 400 metres by 200 metres, elongated to the northwest. This soil anomaly is also coincident with scattered outcrops where reconnaissance rock samples returned anomalous assays up to 9.89 g/t Au.
- At the Sao Domingos zone, centered approximately 1 kilometre southeast of Serra da Quinta, gold-in-soil anomalism is also seen to be coincident with anomalies for Pb and As. This new target covers an area of approximately 400 metres by 200 metres, with the long axis of the zone oriented northwest.
Field crews are now mapping these areas of the geochemical anomalies in detail, and a program of channel, or trench sampling, is anticipated to commence in the coming weeks.