UNITED Kingdom-based miner, Ariana Resources Plc, has identified a significant potential upside at its Dokwe Gold project in Zimbabwe, with prospects identified of increasing the resource base even further through drilling.
The Dokwe Gold Project is located in the Tsholotsho District, 110 kilometres west and northwest of Bulawayo.
The Dokwe deposits, comprises of Dokwe North and Central which were discovered by Rockover in 2002, utilising innovative soil geochemical exploration methods capable of detecting mineralisation beneath cover, subsequently drill tested for the first time in 2004.
According to Ariana, Dokwe represents the largest undeveloped gold project in Zimbabwe and is currently 100% owned by the firm.
“Our review of the exploration data and geology of the Dokwe North and Central areas has led to the identification of several zones showing potential for significant resource upside. Based on our current assessments, we are targeting potential enhancement of the resource to at least 2Moz (million ounces) of gold,” Ariana managing director Kerim Sener said yesterday.
“At Dokwe North, a detailed reassessment of the geology and the structural controls on mineralisation is yielding a refined understanding of the upside opportunities.”
He said that in particular, several high-grade zones were noted which displayed good strike continuity through the deposit, trending northeast-southwest and plunging at a moderate angle to the southwest.
“This opens up the southern end of the deposit for further exploration. In addition, deeper holes on the deposit in the northwest, suggest the potential for repeated prospective stratigraphy, notably dacite and tuff, indicating that there is an opportunity to encounter good mineralisation on the northern flanks of the deposit,” Sener said.
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“At Dokwe Central, we have now demonstrated an opportunity to define further mineralisation along strike over a distance of approximately 1km along a faulted contact between volcanic and sedimentary units. Several historic drill hole intercepts along this structure suggest that a well-defined mineralised zone developed in the immediate vicinity of the fault zone and trends broadly east-west.”
He said a historic 7,3m (metres) at 6,63g/t (grammes per tonne) gold intercept from 32,2m identified gold mineralisation within the Archaean units just beneath the cover sequence was identified and had not yet been followed up with further drilling.
“In summary, there is excellent potential at Dokwe North and Central to continue growing the resource base in a material way and we are designing new drilling programmes accordingly. We look forward to updating the market on this work in due course,” Sener said.
Ariana is currently listed on the UK’s Alternative Investment Market, a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that allows smaller, growing companies to raise capital by floating shares.
Last month, Ariana revealed that it would be seeking secondary listing on Australian Securities Exchange by year end.
