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Avocet, through its 100%-owned local Burkinabe subsidiaries, holds eight exploration licences covering 1,660 km2 that are strategically positioned within the highly prospective Belahouro district, which surrounds the Inata gold mine in the northern Burkina Faso.
Renewed exploration programme at Bélahouro is likely to discover additional gold resources for development as modern-day exploration procedures have not been applied to the very prospective land-package surrounding the Inata gold mine site. Furthermore, the geology at Inata is reflected at a number of other sites at Bélahouro, and some are already known to contain gold mineralisation. Often, transported sands and gravels obscure gold mineralisation at surface, making the task of finding gold more difficult; however, advanced exploration techniques, such as airborne geophysical surveys, make exploration for gold feasible.
Gold mineralisation at Inata occurs within a well-defined shear zone marking the boundary between the granites and volcanics of the Damba-Inata Domain in the west, and the Sona Sedimentary Basin in the east. The gold mineralisation occurs within silicified metasedimentary and volcaniclastic rocks within the shear zone, and in porphyritic rocks that intrude the shear system. To the south of Inata the shear zone is folded to an E-W orientation. Here, the mineralisation also takes on an E-W orientation (for example at Minfo) where boudinaged pods of quartz vein containing gold can be found. The best example of this is the Minfo and Pali-Minfo trends where shallow RAB drilling has been undertaken.
Further to the east, another important gold-bearing contact exists, this time at the Fete Kole Volcanic-plutonic boundary with the Sona Sedimentary Basin to the east. This contact is called the Souma Trend and to date, additional gold occurrences have been tracked for at least 16 km along its length. No resources are currently defined along the Souma Trend but Avocet is hoping that new exploration and resource development will quickly prove up resources that are easily within trucking distance (less than 20 km) of the Inata processing plant. Some of the more significant drilling results of previous owners are shown on the figure to the right.
The highest priority drill target along the Souma Trend that is known about is called the Souma prospect. Very encouraging gold intercepts in drilling have been reported over a 1,000 m strike length (see map) and no drill testing has been done to the north, where the mineralisation is thought to disappear under transported, aeolian sands, obscuring the mineralisation in surface outcrop. Despite the mineralisation occurring in the Sona Sedimentary Basin, the gold mineralisation at Souma occurs within a highly altered gabbroic rock that marks a significant flexure in the belt-basin architecture.
Gold mineralisation along the Souma Trend is often high-grade and structurally controlled on the western contact of the Bélahouro Granite.
As announced in May 2010, the evaluation of projects in West Africa has identified several known gold mineralised systems in the 100 per cent Avocet-owned Bélahouro group of permits that cover an area of 1,660 km2 surrounding the Inata gold mine in northern Burkina Faso. These include the 16 km long Souma Trend, 12 km long Damba Trend and near-mine gold prospects at Pali, Filio and Inata North. This work has also identified significant areas of young Saharan sand cover that potentially conceals additional targets.
Avocet has contracted Geotech Airborne Limited to conduct a 9,100 km heliborne VTEM geophysical survey over the entire Bélahouro District. This is part of an initiative to map all prospective geological structures and develop an inventory of viable targets to guide exploration going forward. The survey commenced in April 2010 and should be completed by the end of June 2010, with interpretation being conducted during the wet season (July and August) and completed by September 2010. Results from near the Inata mine are yet to be fully analysed but are encouraging enough to indicate at this early stage that the mineralised gold bearing system that hosts the Inata deposit is likely to extend in a number of directions. If proven to be the case, this has the potential to significantly increase Inata’s resource and reserve base over time.
The Company has also contracted West African Drilling Services, a subsidiary of Layne Christensen Drilling, to conduct a 22,000 metre scout drilling programme at the Souma Trend. This will focus on the core gold mineralised prospect of Dynamite, south of Souma village, where previous RAB and RC drilling, conducted prior to Avocet’s entry in West Africa, returned up to 6 metres at 13.0 g/t Au from 87 metres depth and 30 metres at 3.06 g/t Au from 20 metres depth, respectively. Drilling will also target other mineralised vein zones within the Souma Trend where earlier RC drilling intersected up to 23 metres at 15.5 g/t Au from 16 metres depth. The scout drilling programme commenced in May 2010 and will be completed prior to the onset of the wet season in July 2010.
The above two initiatives will lead on to a more aggressive exploration programme in the second half of the year, with the objective of developing new open-pittable gold resources in the Inata area.
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