Compass Gold completes re-assaying of select RC drilling at Massala West
Compass Gold Corp. is pleased to provide an update on the recently completed resampling and assaying at the Massala West prospect on the Sankarani permit, located on the Company’s Sikasso Property in southern Mali.
“Additional resampling of previously drilled RC holes at Massala West has confirmed our earlier retesting at Moribala 15 km to the south, that our initial assay results have under-reported gold concentrations on the prospect. New testing of different portions of some of the same samples has identified wider, higher grade and more abundant mineralization over a tested strike length of 1.1 km of the 3.6 km Massala West zone. With these positive results, the Company is now planning additional trenching at Massala West and Tarabala to determine a more accurate gold grade and whether there is significantly more gold present within these extensive zones,” Compass CEO, Larry Phillips, said.
Massala West Re-Assaying Results
Initial drilling results over the artisanal workings at Dakoun and Dafaraba on the Moribala permit were at odds with the gold recoveries noted by the artisanal miners. Company geologists suspected that the variable sizes of the gold’s distribution (i.e., it was “nuggety”) resulted in lower grades from the initial RC rock chip samples submitted to the lab.
To test this hypothesis, coarse field rejects from the RC program were washed and sieved to separate the quartz vein material from the weathered wall rock and friable vein material (now clays). The results of this work showed that gold grades were typically significantly higher in the quartz vein fragments than in the weathered rock, and the overall recombined grades were higher. A similar approach was taken 15 km along strike at the Massala West prospect located on the Sankarani permit.
A total of 287 samples were collected from waste bags at six previously drilled RC holes at Massala West on four fence lines over a distance of 1,100 m. The holes tested quartz veins within the mineralized zone (SARC07, 08, 09, 12), and outside the zone (SARC06 and 11).
The results showed that most assays of the weighted average recombined sample were higher than the original assay and the mineralized intervals were wider. The maximum interval was 28 m @ 0.63 g/t Au (from 24 m in SARC08). Previous sampling of this same zone identified two zones at 3 m @ 0.69 g/t Au (from 24 m) and 5 m @ 0.59 g/t Au (from 45 m). The largest increase in grade was recorded from SARC12. Previous sampling returned 3 m @ 0.43 g/t Au (from 19 m; including 2 m @ 0.62 g/t Au) and the new sampling from the same intercept returned 3 m @ 2.75 g/t Au. An 8 m interval in the same hole showed a modest decrease from an average of 0.55 g/t Au in the original assaying to 0.38 g/t Au in the new assaying.
From the total of 287 samples analysed, 258 were from holes within the mineralized zone. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of the latter samples showed an increase in the gold content in the recombined samples compared to the original assays. The average increase for these samples from the mineralized zone was 0.27 g/t Au.
A similar exercise was not possible at the Tarabala prospect, as the waste bags had been either processed by the artisanal miners, or the bags had degraded in the sun.
The results of the study presented in Table 1 demonstrate that gold is more commonly found associated with the quartz veins, and a larger sample size helps to recover more of the gold, suggesting a “nugget” effect is present.
Next Steps
Due to the variable gold grades encountered during the AC and RC drilling programs at Moribala, questions arose concerning the true concentration of gold associated with the artisanal workings on the Moribala and Tarabala faults.
Plans are underway to collect a series of large representative samples (10-20 kg) to increase the likelihood of detecting coarse-grained gold and investigate the possibility of recoverable gold in the weathered rock (laterite) associated with the Moribala and Tarabala faults. Sampling will be conducted on near surface mineralization at locations where veins are projected to surface at both prospects. This work is to be conducted from mid-October to mid-November, with results expected by end of December.
