The Banfora Gold Project (Gryphon Minerals 100% owned) is located in the south-west of Burkina Faso, West Africa, in a major gold producing district, host to the world class gold deposits of Tongon (4.2 Million oz Au) only 30km to the south, Syama (5 Million oz Au mined & 6.5 Million oz Au in resources) 50km to the West, and Morila (6.5 Million oz Au) 75km to the North West. The project area contains five exploration licenses covering a total of 1,150km2 and encapsulates the entire “Loumana” Birimian greenstone belt within Burkina Faso.
The Project area is easily accessible by road and in close proximity to the town of Banfora. A 100km sealed road connects Banfora town to the city of Bobo Diolasso and a further 350km to Burkina Faso’s capital city Ouagadougou. Grid power is located approximately 30km from the eastern boundary of the project.
Since Gryphon commenced exploration at the Banfora Gold Project approx 95% of all drilling has been focussed within the large grano-diorite intrusion known as the Nogbele (Nog-bee-lee) and Fourkoura (Four-core-a) gold deposits.
In September 2009 the Company was pleased to announce a increase in the inferred resource estimation at the Company’s flagship Banfora Gold Project in Burkina Faso - West Africa (refer to Table 1).
The Company views this resource as an interim estimation with significant potential to define further shallow ounces from the on-going drilling programmes at both the Nogbele and Fourkoura deposits. Key points in regard to the Inferred Resource estimate for the Nogbele & Fourkoura deposits are:
- 14Mt @ 2.4g/t for 1,100,000oz Gold
- 90% above 100 meters depth
- Mineralisation remains open
- Less than US$10 per ounce discovery costs
Table 1: Summary of Banfora Gold Project Resource Estimate
Deposit |
Category |
Tonnage
(Mt) |
Grade Au
(g/t) |
Contained Gold
(Million Ounces) |
Nogbele |
Inferred |
11Mt |
2.3 |
0.9 |
Fourkoura |
Inferred |
3Mt |
2.5 |
0.2 |
Total Banfora Gold Project |
Inferred |
14Mt |
2.4 |
1.1 |
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 Nogbele Resource Map (enlarge) |
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Fourkoura Deposit (recent drilling) |
Fourkoura Deposit - recent drilling
The resource estimate within the Nogbele Prospect incorporates primarily two mineralization orientations, east-west trending zones and northwest-southeast trending zones. The east-west mineralized zones consist typically of multiple parallel and sub-parallel zones of broad hematite and / or magnetite, silica and pyritic alteration, sericitic schist’s and lode quartz veins within a granodiorite intrusion.
The northwest-southeast mineralized zones are shear hosted with little or no quartz veining and strong to moderate hematite, carbonate, sericite and pyritic alteration. These zones are typically higher grade and have produced some of the highest gram meter intercepts.
A major shear zone on the western margin of the Nogbele granodiorite continues south for 30 kilometres to Randgold’s world class 4.2 Million ounce Tongon gold deposit.
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| Latest Nogbele 10/02/09 (enlarge) |
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Nogbele New DH results 1 shear (enlarge) |
New and previously untested drilling both near the Nogbele Prospect and regionally over the course of the year has intersected significant mineralisation including:
At Nangolo Prospect (‘Nan-go-low’) (1.5km north of Nogbele), holes RAB drilled to 30 meters targeting a 1400 meter soil geochemical anomaly, included:
- 22m @ 2.72 g/t gold from 16m,
- 15m @ 2.76 g/t gold from 12m, and
- 23m @ 4.60 g/t gold from 16m.
- Mineralisation is shallow, open at depth and along strike.
At Ouahiri Prospect (‘Wa-he-re’) (7kms to the north-west of Nogbele), holes RAB drilled to an average depth of 25 meters targeting a 2000 meter soil geochemical anomaly, included:
- 4m @ 12.09 g/t gold from surface,
- 7m @ 4.22 g/t gold from 1m, and
- 7m @ 3.89 g/t gold from 8m,
- Several holes ended in mineralisation and are open at depth and along strike.
At Samavogo Prospect ('Sama-vo-go') (20kms north-east of Nogbele), holes RAB drilled on twotraverses 400m apart to an average depth of 32 metres targeting a 3000 metre geochemical anomoly included:
- 8m @ 2.51g/t gold from 4m,
- 4m @ 2.30g/t gold from 12m, and
- Rock chips up to 85g/t gold,
- Follow up drilling is targeting a major shear zone in a similar geological setting to the 4.2Million oz Tongon deposit 30km to the south of Gryphon's tenure.
At Muddhi Prospect (‘Mud-he') (15kms east of Nogbele Prospect), holes RAB drilled on one traverse targeting the intersection of two major regional shears included:
- 24m @ 2.52g/t gold from 4m
- Rock chips of 150g/t, 40g/t and 33g/t gold
- Mineralization is open along strike on two separate mineralized zones.
Regional geochemical sampling has been undertaken across portions of the Project previously untested. So far a further 30 high priority targets have been identified with numerous others requiring follow up test work. Many of the recently identified anomalies each extend in excess of 500 meters strike length and are of greater than 100ppb gold peak soil values of up to 1.93g/t gold. The area covered so far by Gryphon’s soil geochemistry accounts for only 40% of the total area to be covered by this on-going regional programme at the Banfora Gold Project.
The Company believes that drill results to date on the Project confirms the potential for the Banfora Gold Project to host world class gold mineralization similar to other major deposits in West Africa.
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