In this week’s edition of Bulls N’ Bears Big Hits, we examine some of the notable drill intersections revealed on the ASX, including WIA Gold’s 4m at 87.43 grams per tonne gold from 79m at its Bouaflé project in Côte d’Ivoire.
We also take a close look at other interesting drill hits from last week as reported by Turaco Gold from the Woulo Woulo gold deposit at its Afema project that also sits in Côte d’Ivoire and PolarX from its Caribou Dome copper project in Alaska.
So, let’s dive in.
Bouaflé project - Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa
Hit: 4m at 87.43g/t gold from 79m
WIA scored its headline hit in one of two reverse-circulation (RC) reconnaissance drillholes put into its Bouaflé South gold project in Côte d’Ivoire as part of the company’s inaugural 44-hole, 5642m program designed to test multiple targets.
Both holes produced high-grade gold intercepts from a sheared and highly-altered gabbro contact zone. Another hole, collared about 200m away, intercepted 10m assaying 4.54g/t gold from 96m.
The results come after WIA confirmed in late May that it was beginning its RC drilling at Bouaflé South to systematically test its 10 strongest mineralised trends identified by all of its previous work. And it has done plenty of that previous work at the site to get it to this point.
The Bouaflé ground comprises two licences – Bouaflé North and Bouaflé South – which enclose an area of 742 square kilometres acquired through late 2020 and early to mid-2021.
In October 2021, the company kicked off a 10,000m auger drilling program with two rigs at Bouaflé South to test the central part of the main shear. The campaign comprised 1529 holes for a total of 8418m.
By February 2022, the company had identified more than 17km of anomalism along the strike of the main mineralised shear, defined by several zones exceeding 100 parts per billion gold in soils and from historical wide-spaced drilling. It also completed a low-level bulk leach extractable gold (BLEG) stream sediment sampling program at both Bouaflé tenements through the first half of 2022, returning values up to 34.6ppb.
WIA then took 2400 samples from a 9919m, 1308-hole auger program on Bouaflé South that kicked off at the end of December 2022. Two zones were covered at permit scale – the main shear zone where a 4km-strike, gold-in-termite mound anomaly was recently defined and a smaller 1.5km-long anomaly in the south-east of the permit.
A total of eight kilometre-scale gold anomalies were resolved from the auger results. The company figured the scale and tenor of the anomalies established them as drill-ready targets and began planning follow-up work.
In May 2022, WIA cranked up a 9000m air-core (AC) drilling program at Bouaflé following the positive outcomes from its previous auger drilling. It covered about 7.5km of strike along the arc of the main mineralised shear that had also been highlighted by previous explorers.
The follow-up campaign comprised 198 holes for 7538m drilled and returned zones of anomalous gold including 12m at 1.21g/t, 7m at 1.16g/t and 9m at 2.63g/t.
In January last year, WIA said its low-level termite mound sampling program to follow-up priority zones defined from the BLEG stream sediment sampling had identified two new significant surface gold anomalies at Bouaflé South. Results came up with a best hit of 2.04g/t gold – a remarkably positive outcome for the method.
In July 2023, WIA reported that it had defined “drill-ready” targets at Bouaflé South, with auger drilling delivering many kilometre-scale gold anomaly targets from the 2400 samples and showing elevated values including 5.55g/t gold, 4.27g/t, 2.77g/t, 2.76g/t and 2.58g/t.
Then in January this year, management said its latest AC results revealed significant mineralised trends at Bouaflé South from 142 holes put in for 5582m. The program returned significant mineralised intercepts including 4m at 6.04g/t gold, 20m at 1.71g/t and 28m at 0.7g/t in oxide material.
Now, with the new eye-catching results under its belt, WIA has embarked on the current 6000m drilling program, which could be followed by a second-phase of 4000m depending on the results from the various targets tested.
In any case, the maiden RC program could be considered a defining point for WIA in an extended period of exploration that exemplifies the detailed attention given to the process of breathing life into new projects.
Afema project - Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa
Hit: 186m at 1.65g/t gold from 263m
The diamond drillhole carrying the headline hit – which includes 7m at 14.43g/t gold from 302m and is accompanied by visible gold – is one of a further 21 drillholes, comprising about 4755m of drilling that were not included in Turaco’s maiden mineral resource estimate for the project.
The Woulo Woulo target hole is among eight drilled for extensions to the company’s recent maiden mineral resource, all of which returned high-grade gold results and exhibit excellent continuity. Results from three of the extension holes include 84m at 1.73g/t gold from 280m, 47m going 1.06g/t gold from 155m and 33m running 1.05g/t gold from 57m.
And more assays are pending for another five diamond holes, including those drilled along strike from this intersection.
Management notes that gold grades from its latest suite of intersections are significantly higher than those typical of shallower holes drilled on the same sections. It comes just a week after the company released its maiden 2.5 million-ounce JORC-compliant resource for the Afema project, which comprises 42.6 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.6g/t gold for 1.25 million ounces.
The current Woulo Woulo mineral resource extends along about 3km of strike and includes mineralisation from surface.
Turaco Gold featured in this column back in May when it scored a big run of 105m assaying 1.61g/t gold from 135m including 34m at 3.19g/t from 135m in maiden drilling at its Woulo Woulo deposit. That previous Big Hit sits about 350m further north along the strike of the mineralised zone from the latest intersection and management believes both the deepest step-backs on the respective sections show intriguing similarities.
As with a lot of the exploration in many of the projects being established in Côte d’Ivoire, long intercepts at modest to significant grades are beginning to seem commonplace and highlight the enormous potential in the country.
Côte d’Ivoire is among the fastest-growing economies in Africa and one of the most dynamic in West Africa. In 2014, it introduced a progressive new mining code and ongoing infrastructure improvements are making it one of the more investor-friendly countries in Africa.
Caribou Dome project – Alaska, United States
Hit: 15.5m at 7.4 per cent copper and 21.4g/t silver from 121.16m
This Big Hit also includes 8.1m at 11.4 per cent copper and 35.8g/t silver from 123.14m and a separate intercept of 2.1m at 6.2 per cent copper and 7.5g/t silver from 132.51m depth.
Sectional interpretation depicts the intercept as a likely part of a deeper and possibly fault-displaced extension of a block of mineralisation – designated by PolarX as Lense 5, which it intercepted between the surface and about 100m depth.
A drillhole through the top of an interpreted fault-displaced lower part of Lense 5 produced a second high-grade intercept that bored out 8.7m of 4.3 per cent copper and 10.5g/t silver including 3.4m at 7.6 per cent copper and 20.7g/t silver and a further 1.5m at 5.7 per cent copper and 7g/t silver.
PolarX says the copper and silver grades intersected in both holes are significantly higher than the average resource grade for Caribou Dome of 3.1 per cent copper and is hosted within Lense 5 and the adjacent Lense 6, which both contain high copper grades from surface.
Both of the hits lie beneath a previous hole drilled back in 2021 that intersected 19.1m going 7 per cent copper and 11.2g/t silver and 9.8m reading 6.8 per cent copper and 7.8 g/t silver.
All five holes drilled by the company during the current exploration season intersected zones of copper mineralisation comprising massive to semi-massive sulphides from surface. The intercepts have extended the interpreted depth and continuity of the high-grade zone at Caribou Dome and will assist with future underground mine-planning, while sample material will also be employed for metallurgical testing.
Two longer holes were drilled deeper below the copper sulphides intersected in the first three holes, including the headline hit, and assay results are awaited.
The two step-back holes will reveal if the Lense 5 is continuous at depth. It will also further confirm if it is a fault-displaced lense relative to its interpreted other half that sits on the upper side of an inclined 45-degree inferred fault.
If the pending results show that either or both of the holes intercept mineralisation, they could potentially extend the depth of Lense 5 by an additional 110m.
The hole carrying the headline hit intersected semi-massive to blebby sulphides from 122.7m to 135.8m within calcareous argillite – which are typically fine-grained sedimentary rocks composed mainly of cemented and hardened clay particles – and locally cleaner fine-grained limestone. Sulphide mineralisation is extremely fine-grained, making visual distinction between pyrite and chalcopyrite challenging.
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