Ariana Resources the Anglo Turkish gold exploration and mine development company advanced Thursday with news that it had discovered new gold and silver zones Kiziltepe Sector of the Red Rabbit Mining Project, in Turkey.
See below for for details of the RNS
Ariana Resources plc ("Ariana" or "the Company"), the Anglo-Turkish gold exploration and mine development company is pleased to announce the discovery of additional gold-silver bearing zones within the Kiziltepe Sector of the Red Rabbit Mining Project, which it holds in a joint venture with Proccea Construction Co.
Highlights:
- New highly anomalous zone of mineralisation identified at Kepez Far West with rock-chip samples of up to 6.3g/t Au + 54.8g/t Ag, 5.1g/t Au + 31g/t Ag and 3.5g/t Au + 17.3g/t Ag
- Mineralised zone extended to over 1.6km in strike length at Kepez West and Far West, containing alteration and high-grade quartz veins
- Trenching completed at Camalani identifies several anomalous elluvial quartz fragments with grades of up to 1.9g/t Au + 0.3g/t Ag, 1.2g/t Au + 91.2g/t Ag and 0.9g/t Au + 77.2g/t Ag
- Significant resource upside remaining, with only 6% of the total vein system mapped across the Kiziltepe Sector having received resource drilling
Dr. Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented:
"The latest sampling in the Kepez Far West area of our flagship Red Rabbit project has returned exciting results, and confirms the potential of the area to host a mineralised structure of over 1.6km in length. We have previously drill-tested the far eastern end of this structure and intercepted 8m @ 3.65 g/t gold equivalent and have evidence that the mineralised structure continues at depth.
"We have now established over ten new drill targets across the Kiziltepe Sector, many of which are located within agricultural land and will not require forestry permits to be drill tested. Of 34km of veins mapped and sampled across the region only 2km have been resource drilled and have yielded JORC reserves of 1.1Mt @ 3.1 g/t Au and 39.8 g/t Ag. We expect to identify significant further resources across this region that have the potential to increase mine life well beyond eight years."
Kepez West Sampling
In September 2013, Ariana announced the discovery of a high-grade zone of mineralisation encountered at the western end of the Kepez West structure* (Figure 1). This area is referred to as Kepez Far West. A second phase of exploration was recently undertaken to follow-up on a broadly east-west trending corridor of kaolinite-illite alteration, which continued beyond the known area of mineralisation. The programme consisted of a 3.9km x 1.5km portable X-Ray Fluorescence ("XRF") soil study and aimed to comprehensively cover the east-west trending alteration zone.
A total of 1,500 XRF readings were taken and a full geochemical analysis was completed. Trends in trace element geochemistry, particularly for certain pathfinders such as arsenic and antimony were associated with known zones of mineralisation. A new area extending a further 500m west of Kepez Far West was defined by anomalous arsenic trends and textured quartz vein float material. Assay results from randomly selected quartz float samples returned with grades of 6.28g/t Au + 54.8g/t Ag, 5.09g/t Au + 31g/t Ag and 3.54g/t Au + 17.3g/t Ag. The new area of mineralisation remains open to the west. Further work will commence later this year to refine several drill targets to include within a future drilling programme.
Figure 1: Kepez West and Kepez Far West discoveries identified from XRF geochemistry superimposed on satellite imagery. A quartz vein bearing structure can be traced for over 1.6km in this area in addition to associated alteration. The structure is significant due to the highly anomalous gold and silver grades and due to its ENE-trending orientation, which is not typical of the orientation of mineralised structures elsewhere in the project area.
* Kepez West occurs to the west of Kepez North within which the Company has identified an Indicated JORC resource of approximately 9,000 oz Au equivalent. Kepez North is located 6.5km north-east from Kiziltepe.
Camalani Trenching
In addition to the Kepez Far West work, the team have been working throughout the winter on a series follow-up targets. Since obtaining access to the N2D (Newmont Two Decade) database early last year, the team have generated over 380 exploration targets within 75km of the Kiziltepe mine site. Currently over 90 targets have been followed up, including several important targets within the Sindirgi Gold Corridor. As part of this on-going work, 194m of trenching was completed within the Company's 100% owned Camalani licence located approximately 16km east of the planned Kiziltepe mine. Results have identified a zone containing several anomalous elluvial quartz fragments (1.89g/t Au + 0.3g/t Ag, 1.205g/t Au + 91.2g/t Ag and 0.89g/t Au + 77.2g/t Ag) associated with a Miocene conglomerate horizon occurring between overlying and underlying volcanic tuffs. Further work is currently on-going to locate the primary source of the elluvial fragments.
Current Exploration Plans
The Ariana team are currently in an advance stage of initiating a 500km2 airborne geophysics programme, designed to cover all of the Kiziltepe Sector tenements including all the new targets identified above. This geophysical programme is to be undertaken to further enhance our understanding of the structural architecture of the region and will likely lead to the identification of several new conceptual drilling targets. Furthermore, early preparations are being undertaken for a drilling programme on the Kizilcukur and Karakavak prospects and scheduled to commence in Q3 2014.
