Golden Rim Resources Ltd (ASX:GMR) has started diamond drilling on the Kouri Gold Project in Burkina Faso with a 2,000-metre, 10-hole, program at the high-grade Diabatou Gold Shoot.
The first three holes will test for depth extensions to the gold shoot beneath the current mineral resource pit shell and the deepest existing drill hole which returned 7 metres at 4.6 g/t gold from 191 metres, including 3 metres at 10.2 g/t gold.
The company expects to receive the first results from the Diabatou diamond drilling this month.
Kouri mineral resource
In October 2020, Golden Rim announced an updated global indicated and inferred mineral resource of 50 million tonnes at 1.3 g/t gold for 2 million ounces of contained gold at a 0.5 g/t gold lower cut-off for the Central, East and West lodes at Kouri.
The high-grade Diabatou Gold Shoot mineralisation lies within the East Lode inferred mineral resource which comprises 48,000 ounces at 3.2 g/t gold and is 7 kilometres from the Central Lodes - which comprise the bulk of the global resource.
Infill drilling is also targeting the upper portions of the gold shoot to enable the company to upgrade the mineral resource in this area to the indicated category.
Comparison of the Diabatou Gold Shoot to the extent of other gold shoots in Burkina Faso.
Regional relevance
The discovery of the Diabatou Gold Shoot at Kouri is significant as elsewhere in Burkina Faso, steeply plunging, high-grade gold shoots discovered in granite contact areas are known to host more than 1 million ounces of gold.
While the strike extent of these shoots can be limited, they can extend vertically for more than 1 kilometre, for example:
- Roxgold Inc (TSX:ROXG) (OTCMKTS:ROGFF) (FRA:WF8B) outlined a mineral resource of 1.1 million ounces at 13.9 g/t gold in the Zone 55 Shoot at the Yaramoko Gold Mine in a granite-basalt contact zone; and
- West African Resources Ltd (ASX:WAF) (OTCMKTS:WFRSF) (FRA:W25) outlined a mineral resource of 1 million ounces at 14.1 g/t gold in the M1 South Shoot in a granodiorite-meta-sediment contact zone.
Diabatou Gold Shoot’s current dimensions are similar to the upper portion of high-grade M1 South Shoot being mined by West African Resources at Sanbrado, around 100 kilometres southwest of Kouri.