Alpha Exploration drills 14.07 g/t gold over 16 metres at Kerkasha, Eritrea
Alpha Exploration Ltd. [ALEX-TSXV] reported results from the recent drilling campaign at its Aburna gold prospect, which consisted of 25 drill holes totalling 3,196 metres. Aburna is located in the southwestern part of Alpha’s 771 km2, 100%-owned Kerkasha project, Eritrea, Africa.
Highlights: At the Hill-52 Area, drill hole ABD001 returned 20.00 metres of 7.70 g/t gold. At the Northeast Area, ABR037 returned 16.0 metres of 14.07 g/t gold. Refer to original press release for complete drill results. Michael Hopley, president and CEO, said: “We are again, very encouraged about these latest drilling results from Aburna. Given that the Aburna prospect is a huge area — over 6 km long and 2 km wide – as defined by Alpha surface sampling and mapping – and the fact that we have only drilled 43 holes to date – just over 5, 000 metres in an area measuring about 2.5 km by 1.5 km and many holes have found strong gold mineralization over significant widths including two holes (ABR-037 and ABD-001) which intersected extraordinary results of 16 metres averaging 14.07 g/t and 20 metres averaging 7.70 g/t gold. The results to date suggest to me a major gold discovery by Alpha at Aburna; obviously more drilling is justified.”
The Aburna gold prospect is located on the western side of the company’s Kerkasha Exploration License. Gold was mined at Aburna in the 1920s by Italian colonial miners and more recently by local artisanal miners. Earlier soil and rock-chip sampling by Alpha identified gold mineralization over a large area (approximately 6 km x 2 km) northeast of the colonial mine.
Gold mineralization at Aburna is orogenic-type associated with three major NE-SW oriented shear zones. Recent work by Alpha has included continuous 1-m long sub-surface channel and trench sampling (See press releases on 4th November 2021 and 10th February 2022). Results from all the above work identified five prospective sub-areas that warranted drill testing namely: Hill 52, Northeast, Celebration Hill, Aburna Central and Saddle Workings.
As announced on July 7, 2022, Alpha tested a deep (approximately 200-500 m) chargeability anomaly in the southwest of the Anagulu prospect with one diamond tail hole (311.2 m) off existing RC hole ANR045 (240 m). This strong chargeability anomaly is coincident with elevated copper, gold, and molybdenum in previous drillholes in this area and was interpreted to be a potential source of the copper and gold mineralization identified at surface over a 2-km strike length in soil and rock-chip samples, trenching and drillholes. The drillhole was completed last month to the target depth of 551.2 metres.
Assay results for gold, copper and molybdenum have now been received from the “diamond tail” of ABRD045 and show broad zones of low-level copper mineralization and elevated molybdenum near the end of the hole, including 51 metres of 51 metres of 0.09 g/t gold and 1,309 ppm copper.
Alpha believes that this drill hole has not, as hoped, found the source of the broad zones of copper and gold mineralization identified over a 2-km strike length at Anagulu at surface and in previous drilling. Further detailed analysis of the core from ANRD045, and surrounding area is warranted, to plan further work at Anagulu.
Alpha has made three important discoveries in two years at it’s Kerkasha project in Eritrea: Aburna orogenic gold, Anagulu porphyry gold-copper and Tolegimja volcanogenic massive sulphide.
Alpha currently holds a 100% interest in Kerkasha Exploration License in southwest Eritrea, located 135 km west-southwest of the capital city of Asmara. Since acquiring the property in January 2018, the company has spent ~CAD$13 million on exploration and identified 20 prospects of which six have been drilled to date.