VANCOUVER, BC, April 18,
2023 /CNW/ - Tajiri Resources Corp. (the "Company")
(TSXV: TAJ) is pleased to detail historic Diamond, RC, Aircore and
RAB drill results, that have not yet been made explicit in
past announcements as they pertain to the potential of the K4-K5
prospect. This announcement focuses on drilling at K4 North
only, representing approximately 5% of the area of the greater K4-5
prospect, where historic drilling has been most closely spaced but
is nonetheless very widely spaced by industry standards having been
conducted on a line spacings of mostly 200m 400m &
500m with limited infill at
100m line spacings.
The headlined shallow drill intercepts (almost all above
60m vertical depth) together with
recently announced (March 7, 2023)
saprolite auger results and extensive bedrock artisanal workings
demonstrate the excellent potential for K4 North Prospect to host a
very substantial gold deposit, amenable to open pit mining.
The potential for the prospect to also host significant
higher grades pods as evidenced by the numerous >4g/t drill
intercepts over widths of 3-12m1 is also considered to be high.
It is important to note that historic drilling
was conducted distal to the large area of artisanal bedrock
workings that span some ~ 600 x 300m
at K4 North and as such drilling, despite returning handsome
results, has only possibly tested areas of lessor gold
mineralisation.
Location of the Reo Project and K4-5 and K4 North Prospects are
shown in Figure 1. The location of the K4-North Prospect
within the larger K4 Prospect (North, South and West) along with
potential interpreted mineralised envelopes of interpreted
fold-controlled mineralisation as shown in our March 7th 2023 press release are shown
in Figure 2. Significant gold drill intercepts from K4 North
are listed in Table I and shown in Figures 3 & 4.
A cross section of selected drill results, along with coincident
IP results is presented in Figure 5 which demonstrates that gold
mineralisation occurs in several composite zones of up to 100
metres apparent width comprised of several zones each of several
tens of metres apparent widths. True width remains to be
ascertained through further work.
Significant Artisanal Workings at K4 North
The area of bedrock artisanal shafts at K4 North is large and
covers an impressive area of ~ 64,000
m2 (Figures 3, & 7) These workings are
substantial, forming in their own right, about 1/5th of
the known bedrock workings (308,000m2) within the larger K4
prospect. As such workings at K4 North compare favourably in
scale to workings known to overly other large (4-7Moz) West African
gold deposits (as detailed in our March
7 press release).
Furthermore, as noted in that press release and exemplified in
Figures 6, 7 & 8 areas of artisanal bedrock workings closely
correlate with the known extent of economic mineralisation at
numerous other West African gold deposits and where no other data
is available bedrock shaft workings can serve as a very good
indicator of the potential scale of a deposit. In fact
a general trend is for the area of artisanal bedrock workings to
mostly under represent areas of drilled resources as evident at
Kiaka and Namdini (Figures 7 and 8).
Beyond the absolute scale of the workings at K4 North several
other features of the workings appear to indicate an excellent
chance for hitherto untested mineralisation to underly the
workings.
1)
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Artisanal mining at K4
North has been near continuous for a period of 13 years
2010-present.
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2)
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The K4 North shafts go
deep up to 45m indicative of higher grades worth mining at depth
for the artisanal miners.
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3)
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Artisanal bedrock
workings are embedded in a much larger area of surface lateritic
scrapes (Figures 9 & 10), which are about an order of magnitude
greater than the bedrock workings. At other
artisanal workings in West Africa bedrock workings with a small
dispersion halo of surface lateritic workings tend to be associated
with lower grade deposits e.g. Kiaka, Namdini, M5 (Figures 6, 7
& 8) while higher grade deposits such as M1 South (Figure 6)
tend to be associated with extensive areas of surface scrapes much
larger than contained bedrock workings. This is interpreted
as possibly a result of coarse gold being more abundant within
higher grade deposits and subsequently upon weathering forming
broader deflation lags amenable to crude wind winnowing methods of
gold recovery, than formed by lower grade deposits.
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4)
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The immediate area
surrounding the K4-North artisanal bedrock saprolite shafts was
mechanically excavated to depths of between 3-10m representing an
estimated 750,000-1,000,000 tonnes of material moved (Figure
11). Initially the immediate area was subject to hand
excavated pits, scrapes and shallow shafts, but later between 2012
and 2016 the area was mechanically mined by an organised syndicate
of artisanal miners, who trucked the material to nearby
watercourses where it was processed through sluice
boxes. To the Company's knowledge this was the only
artisanal operation in Burkina where colluvial material was trucked
for remote processing. It may therefore be inferred that the
colluvium in the immediate vicinity of the K4 North artisanal
shafts was particularly rich in gold to warrant such unique
treatment.
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5)
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Due to the excavation
of the colluvial pit. Mining since 2016 has only proceed
during the dry season as during the wet season the colluvial pit
floods. Consequently, many of the previous season's shafts
collapse and must be re-excavated. Again, we infer this as
positive for potential mineralisation as the additional work
required to renovate workings on an annual basis, suggests that the
K4 North mineralisation is worth the exceptional effort by the
artisanal miners.
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In form, the K4 North bedrock workings do not follow a linear
"shear hosted" disposition, but a sinuous contorted form that
strongly suggests mineralisation is localised within fold noses and
is of substantial scale (Figures 11 & 12). Fold axes are
interpreted to be NNW striking and the largest central fold closure
evident in the workings some 120m
wide with a strike length of 330m
metres (Figure 12).
As such the form of workings is strongly supportive of the
Company's poly folded interpretation of mineralisation within the
wider K4-K5 system and a comparison of the form of the K4-North and
K4 South Artisanal workings with the form of bodies at the fold
hosted Homestake deposit is shown in Figure 14.
Details of Historic Drilling
At K4 North drilling has been conducted as follows:
1)
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Northwest oriented
lines of air-core drilling to fresh rock. Lines of this
orientation were spaced 500m apart and drill holes were collared
along lines at between 80-150m apart – as such this drilling
exhibits large gaps between and along lines. Aircore drill
holes were assayed as 4 metre composites with selected intervals
re-assayed at one metre.
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2)
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RAB drilling on North
South lines spaced 100-400m apart. Along lines RAB drilling
was conducted on an irregular spacing with each successive collar
along a line located above the bottom of the preceding hole and
thus in theory giving horizontal coverage for any vertically
dipping mineralisation. RAB holes on alternate lines
were either all drilled to the south or all drilled to the north.
RAB drill holes were terminated at blade refusal, for the most part
being the oxide/fresh rock interface.
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3)
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Selective RC and
Diamond drilling to follow-up better RAB and air-core
intersections. All holes were drilled on a N-S azimuth with
2-5 holes testing a zone and spaced at 20-40m between collars. Most
RC holes were drilled to depths of 60-100m while the deepest
diamond hole was drilled to a depth of 190m at a -60
inclination.
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4)
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All assays were by fire
assay with either a 30 or 50gram charge.
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Interpretation
Given the wide spaced drilling conducted to date it is not
possible to give a definitive interpretation of the form of
mineralisation represented by drill intercepts and interpretation
remains highly speculative. However, as a work around a
range of possible interpretations may be given with mineralisation
intersected by drilling along with areas of bedrock artisanal
workings utilising varying orientations and degrees of inferred
continuity to arrive at a target size range.
The Company illustrates 6 possible interpretations in Figure 13
and note that the surface area of drilled and bedrock working
mineralisation ranges from ~79,000 m2 to 195,800m2, the lowest area being a
conservative interpretation which infers little continuity between
drill intersections and the largest area inferring near continuous
zones of mineralisation. Assuming a down dip continuity of
200m, average depth to fresh rock of
60m (average supported by drilling)
and SGs of 1.7 and 2.65 for oxide and fresh rock respectively gives
"back of the envelope" target tonnages of between 37 - 93 million
tonnes for K4 North.
We however do caution that such a target tonnage remains highly
speculative, with depth continuity of mineralisation being the
largest unknown.
Next Exploration Steps
The company considers the following step warranted to progress
exploration at K4 North:
1)
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Further close spaced
auger drilling at K4 North on a 25 x 100m grid, with lines-oriented
NE-SW, with selected areas around known drill intercepts at 12.5 x
12.5m and 25 x25m grids to define surface continuity and
orientation of mineralisation between drill holes and
workings.
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2)
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Excavation of several
trenches and small 10 x10m - 20 x 20m panel pits directly over
areas of bedrock workings for structural mapping and detailed
sampling.
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3)
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Oriented diamond
drilling ~ 3,000-4,000m to transect both drilled mineralisation and
bed rock artisanal workings to gather structural information
regarding the 3dimensional orientation of
mineralisation.
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Chairman's comments
We are pleased to note that K4 North represents a first-rate
gold target with initial drilling having returned excellent results
over substantial widths that are open and clearly part of a much
larger system. The system is at an early stage of
understanding and as such the company looks forward now to rapidly
progressing exploration towards ultimately defining what could be a
very substantial gold deposit.
Qualified Person
The Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101 -
Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects for this news
release is Dominic O'Sullivan a
geologist, member of the AusIMM, Executive Chairman of Tajiri who
has reviewed and approved its contents.
On Behalf of the Board,
Tajiri Resources Corp.
Graham
Keevil,
President & CEO
About Tajiri
Tajiri Resources Corp. is a junior gold exploration and
development Company with exploration assets located in two of the
worlds least explored and highly prolific greenstone belts of
Burkina Faso, West Africa and Guyana, South
America. Lead by a team of industry professionals with a
combined 100 plus years' experience the Company continues to
generate shareholder value through exploration.
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1 In the K4 North Area there are 9 intercepts better than
3m and better than 4g/t with average
width and grade of 5.9m @ 6.4g/t
SOURCE Tajiri Resources Corp.