20th Feb 2014 08:55
LONDON (Alliance News) - SolGold PLC saw its shares rise Thursday after it said that drilling at the Alpala prospect within its copper-gold Cascabel project in northern Ecuador had further extended the potential mineralisation area at the project, and it thinks it has discovered a world class project.
In a statement, the company said a strongly visible porphyry copper sulphide mineralisation had continued to a depth of 1303.5 metres in the fifth hole its is drilling on the prospect. The copper-rich sulphides include chalcopyrite, bornite and chalcocite as fine to coarse grained disseminations and in veins with magnetite, it said.
It said it had found a strong correlation between magnetite content, magnetic characteristics and copper sulphide contents, which enabled correlation between the three dimensional Alpala magnetic model and copper-gold porphyry targets.
It is accelerating drilling to a depth of 1,500 metres, or to the end of the copper mineralisation. It expects to reach 1,500 metres in 10 days.
"The board and exploration team are excited by this intersection. The geological features, mineralogy and strong copper sulphide mineralisation encountered from near the top of the hole to the current reported depth at 1303.5 indicates that we have drilled into a very substantial copper-gold porphyry system," Chief Executive Alan Martin said in the statement.
"Its location in the Andean Copper Belt, one of the worlds' most prolific copper-gold porphyry regions, augurs strongly for the discovery of a world class project," he added.
The latest drilling results continue a string of good news from the tests on the Alpala prospect. Earlier this month, SolGold said it had found strong results down to 1,106.8 metres in hole 5. In January, it had reported strong results down to 845 metres.
SolGold shares were up 7.8% at 9.7 pence early Thursday, one of the biggest gains on AIM.
By Steve McGrath; [email protected]; @SteveMcGrath1
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