Oct 28 2010
Batero Gold Corp. (TSX VENTURE:BAT) has announced the commencement of the Phase 1 diamond drill program at the Batero–Quinchia Project, Risaralda Department, Colombia.
The drill program will target five high-priority areas with four drill rigs for a total of 16,000 metres
All the drill target areas are confined within a 2 km x 2.5 km area and each target reflects strong coincident anomalies either from the ongoing geochemical soil and rock sampling program, field mapping program, past airborne geophysical program, and/or the historic drill program conducted in 2006. There are two field geology programs ongoing: ground geophysics (magnetometric, IP and radiometric) at 50 metre line spacing and a geochemical soils and rock program. Work is ongoing and will continue to contribute significantly to further define additional drill targets within the project area.
The Company's primary goal after the completion of the phase 1 drill program is to significantly expand the known mineralization of the Company's La Cumbre gold and copper porphyry target and to generate a NI 43-101compliant resource estimate.
Other drill target areas include the Company's newly discovered Matecana porphyry target (see news release dated September 9, 2010) located approximately one kilometer southeast from La Cumbre's historic drill hole 8 (which intersected 276.65 metres of 0.75 g/t gold and 0.14% copper from surface and remained in significant mineralization at the end of the drill hole) and approximately 340 metres below in elevation from the collar of drill hole 8. The Company anticipates defining mineralization at depth. Matecana is supported by a strong magnetic anomaly approximately 400m x 500m in surface area and linear chip samples reported September 9, 2010 which included 24 continuous metres resulting in values ranging from 0.348 g/t gold to 1.035 g/t gold for a weighted average of 0.642 g/t gold.
A third targeted area will be an area associated with La Cumbre porphyry target located in an area called "The Structural Node". This area has returned elevated geochemical results from soil and rock samples. It has also been mapped in detail revealing strong local and regional cross-cutting faults (N20 – 30 E, Cauca Romeral system and N 40 – 50 W to E-W system), abundant alteration noted at surface throughout the target area, and numerous abandoned artisanal adits. "The Structural Node" is located up to 800 metres to the east from the historic drill hole mineralization of La Cumbre porphyry target.
The fourth area to be tested is Lenguita-San Luis located approximately 1 kilometre to the north of La Cumbre and at similar elevations. Lenguita is a landform feature trending greater than 300 metres (long axis) comprised with pervasive silicification and potassic alteration and preliminary geochemical soil sample results have returned elevated gold mineralization throughout Lenguita's extent. San Luis is a creek that flows perpendicular and through Lenguita and has returned preliminary rock and soil sample results indicating the presence of molybdenum and copper. The Company will drill test this area, cutting both Lenguita and San Luis area with the goal to define a new area of gold-copper-molybdenum mineralization.
Lastly, the final target area, El Cedral, is a newly defined area of significance that the Company considers high priority. This is due to recent work completed in the area evidenced by elevated anomalous geochemical soil and rock sample results in combination with fault structures, breccia, tuff, diorite porphyry, and rock samples comprised solely of near pure silica.
The drill holes are targeted to drill to an average length of 350 metres at 60 - 70 degree angles. Additionally, there will be several 1000 metre drill holes to test the vertical extent of the porphyry system.
The drill program has budgeted 10000 metres for La Cumbre, 1500 metres for Matecana, 1500 metres for "The Structural Node", 1500 metres for Lenguita-San Luis, and 1500 metres for El Cedral.
Core logging and splitting will be done by company geologists in the field. Sample preparation and analysis will be completed at ALS in Bogota, Colombia and ALS in Lima, Peru, respectively. Core samples will be pulverized to 200 mesh and fire assayed on a 50 gram sample with an atomic absorption finish (AAS); a suite of multi-element analysis will be analyzed by four acid digestion and finished with inductively coupled plasma emission (ICP-MS). Standards, blanks and duplicate samples will be routinely inserted and monitored for quality assurance and quality control.
Darren Anderson, P.Geo., an independent Qualified Person (as such term is defined by NI 43-101) is responsible for the preparation of the technical information in this release.