(MENAFN - ProactiveInvestors - Australia) Canyon Resources (ASX: CAY) is set to begin an aggressive drilling campaign at its Tao Gold Project in Burkina Faso within the week to further delineate gold mineralisation at the advanced Tondoby Prospect.
The Tao Project is located in a well-endowed gold province that is host to the 6.3 million ounce Essakane Gold Mine, the 2 million ounce Taparko Gold Mine and the 2.5 million ounce Samira Hills Gold Mine.
The project lies in the Gorouol Greenstone Belt which hosts the country's largest deposit, the Essakane Mine.
The company will begin with an initial 29 hole, 3,060 metre reverse circulation drilling campaign to infill existing drilling and test additional targets and extensions to the 3 kilometre long mineralised zone at the Tondoby Prospect.
Gold anomalism has been identified over a 12 kilometre strike on the Tondoby Prospect in reconnaissance drilling undertaken last season.
There is believed to be the potential for this to continue for a significant distance, supported by new sites of artisanal mining coincident with the auger gold anomaly extending 5 kilometre to the south of the main Tondoby drilling.
In addition to the reverse circulation drilling campaign, Canyon will carry out an 8,000 metre rotary air blast program and a 3,000 metre auger drilling program to better define these extensions.
The rotary air blast drilling campaign will follow up the high grade gold in soil anomalies identified from the previous season's exploration.
It will focus on extending the gold mineralisation on the Tondoby structure further to the south and testing the parallel geochemical anomaly which may represent a second mineralising structure that remains open in all directions.
The auger drilling program will continue to test the strike length of the main Tondoby structure and extensions of the parallel anomaly.
Importantly, there is the potential to discover another highly mineralised zone similar to the Tondoby Prospect, as the bulk of the project has yet to have any drilling done on it and similar zones continue to be identified on the project.
Exploration is planned to recommence on the Pinarello and Taparko North projects during the March quarter of 2013.
High grade gold
Previous reverse circulation drilling by Canyon at Tao has intersected high grade gold mineralisation including:
- 8 metres at 30.04 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 56 metres, including 4 metres at 58.7g/t gold;
- 8 metres at 10.31g/t gold from 100 metres;
- 12 metres at 2.47g/t gold from 84 metres; and
- 4 metres at 4.62g/t gold from 88 metres.
The Tao Project lies along an untested 20 kilometre long shear zone that runs through the project area, with multiple shallow artisanal mining operations directly along strike.
The Tondoby Prospect is set to deliver the first resource for the project, with the prospect hosting further exploration upside due to it remaining open in all directions.
