Lavras Gold Corp (TSX-V:LGC) said that drilling and assay results from its flagship Lavras do Sul (LDS) project in southern Brazil confirm that a significant new gold deposit has been found at its Matilde target.
According to the Toronto-based company, the results come just two months after Lavras announced bonanza gold grades at Zeca Souza and three months after a NI 43-101 compliant resource for the Cerrito Deposit increased the company’s consolidated gold resources to one million ounces.
“We are very gratified with these results from Matilde. We are seeing long broad zones of continuous intercepts of important gold mineralization accentuated with multiple narrower higher-grade intervals and in certain instances, bonanza gold grades associated with visible gold,” Lavras Gold CEO Michael Durose said in a statement.
READ: Lavras Gold hits 'bonanza' gold grades from first drilling at Zeca Souza target at Lavras do Sul project
“Long continuous zones of gold mineralization both laterally and to a vertical depth of more than 480 meters (m) where it is still open, indicate a very strong and large gold system at Matilde,” he added.
The company said that the next steps will be to follow up on the results to test for extensions to gold mineralization along strike to the west and to the northeast where the firm is drilling at Matilde Extension.
“Work will also focus on better defining the nature of the structures that host the gold, alteration styles associated with mineralization, and their relationship to the large three-kilometre-long gold in soil anomaly that is centered on the Matilde target,” added Durose.
Located 4.5 kilometers (km) south of the town of Lavras do Sul, Matilde is one of six priority drilling targets. There are 23 known gold occurrences at LDS. Other drilling targets include Matilde Extension, Caneleira, Vila Marieta, Mato Feio, and Zeca Souza.
According to Lavras, important gold mineralization occurs in 91%, or 30 out of 33 holes totaling 9,847m drilled at Matilde to date. The firm’s new assay results are from 26 drill holes totaling 8,349m.
The company highlighted the following:
- Strike-length continuity – Drilling has confirmed gold mineralization extends over an east-west strike length of at least 250m. The structure “bends” to the northwest along the western part of the magnetic anomaly. The structure turns to the northeast at the eastern side where it strikes towards the Matilde Extension target about 750m away. Drilling is testing for extensions of gold in both directions at Matilde where mineralized zones remain open;
- Depth and continuity open – Long intervals of gold mineralization occur in holes 20MT-001, 20MT-002, 20MT-008, and 22MT-034. Hole 22MT-034 is noteworthy as the hole was drilled 557m and bottomed in gold mineralization. This suggests that Matilde has deep roots, typical of porphyry-style mineral systems;
- Broad zones of moderate gold mineralization accentuated by narrower higher-grade intervals: Long intervals of gold characterized by zones of moderate grades in the 0.4-0.7 grams per ton (g/t) gold range are accentuated by narrower higher-grade intervals typically in the 1-1.5 g/t gold range, but sometimes as high as 2-to-4 g/t gold; and
- Bonanza gold grades: Bonanza gold grades of more than 10 g/t were associated with visible gold. Cross-cutting lamprophyre dykes suggested a possible gold precipitation mechanism in at least two areas: 20MT-002 yielded 0.60m grading 30.90 g/t gold from 261m, while 22MT-034 returned a zone of 1m grading 2.84 g/t gold from 407m.
Meanwhile, Renaud Geological Consulting completed petrographic studies on samples from the Matilde target, which concluded that this is a large intrusive hosted gold system with epithermal and porphyry characteristics.
The drilling results are being incorporated into the geological database for further interpretation and analysis. The 16,000m drilling program is ongoing and consists of two drills.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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