The Banfora Gold Project 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 (3.2 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 1150km2 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.
Previous explorers, that include Western Mining Corporation (WMC), had undertaken reconnaissance style exploration including soil sampling, geological mapping, rock chip sampling. Limited drilling (open hole RAB) was undertaken, with the maximum historic drill hole depth within the project being only 60 metres. The majority of the project area has not been drill tested and a large number of historical holes appear to have been ineffective in testing targets.
There are a plethora of high magnitude, well defined soil geochemical anomalies that require follow up drill testing within the Project area. One such soil geochemical anomaly at the Nogbele Prospect extends for in excess of 2000 metres with peak levels including 2400ppb, 1900ppb, 1600ppb, 1500ppb gold and associated rock chips along the entire strike include 28g/t, 18g/t and 12g/t gold.
Numerous high tenor rock chips, with little or no follow up work exist throughout the project area, including 90.4g/t gold, 52.8g/t gold, 29.9g/t gold and 28.0g/t gold.
Gryphon Minerals announced results from its inaugural drill programme earlier in 2006 within the large grano-diorite intrusion known as the Nogbele (Nog-be-lee) Prospect. Reverse Circulation and Aircore drilling has targeted areas where broad laterally extensive magnetic zones and high order magnitude soil geochemical anomalies are prevalent. The Company has now drill defined at least seven mineralised gold zones with a combined strike length in excess of five kilometres (refer to figure). Significant gold mineralisation has been intersected on all seven mineralised zones, including the major Nogbele South Zone that extends in excess of 1.2 kilometres strike.
Reconnaissance drilling was also undertaken on the Fourkoura (For-korr-a) Prospect located at the intersection of a major shear corridor and a zoned dolerite intrusive, similar in style to the Golden Mile dolerite in Western Australia. A large historical soil geochemical anomaly extends over 2500 metres in strike length with several peak values over 1000ppb gold that coincides with the dolerite. Gold Mineralization is open in all directions, and the dolerite intrusion continues untested to the north below shallow transported cover.
A selection of Gryphon’s significant drill results to date from the Nogbele and Fourkoura Prospects include:
 BNRC296 |
16m @ 8.95g/t Au from 32m |
| BNRC006 |
16m @ 5.44g/t Au from 0m
3m @ 6.95g/t Au from 34m |
| BNAC051 |
41m @ 2.12g/t Au from 0m |
| BNRCD259 |
28m @ 2.23g/t Au from 0m |
| BNRC021 |
6m @ 4.41g/t Au from 88m |
| BNRC030 |
8m @ 3.12g/t Au from 34m |
| BNRC001 |
15m @ 2.03g/t Au from 36m |
| BNRC291 |
8m @ 3.01g/t Au from 0m |
| BNAC063 |
7m @ 3.49g/t Au from 8m |
Recent field mapping and geological and geophysical interpretations have highlighted two significant “mineralising corridors” that each extend for in excess of 25 kilometres through the entirety of the Banfora Project. The Nogbele and Fourkoura Prospects sit within these corridors.
The “Nogbele Mineralised Corridor” in the western portion of the Project is host to numerous granodiorite and similar style intrusions, including the significantly mineralised Nogbele granodiorite.
The “Fourkoura Mineralised Corridor” runs through the eastern portion of the project area and hosts the mineralised Fourkoura dolerite intrusion, as well as interpreted crustal scale NNE trending primary structures with numerous high angled, cross cutting shears and dilational jogs along the structures.
Within these mineralised corridors numerous Orpiallage (historical gold workings) and gold soil geochemical anomalies exist that have yet to be tested. A regional soil geochemical programme will soon be commencing to cover significant portions of the Banfora Project area that have yet to be tested.
Gryphon Minerals Ltd is extremely encouraged by the high proportion of significant results from its recent drill programmes. This reinforces the potential for the Banfora Gold Project to host large scale gold mineralization. The Company is committed to aggressive exploration programmes that include RC, Diamond and RAB drilling, regional soil geochemistry, mapping and geophysical targeting at the Nogbele and Fourkoura and other high priority targets at the Banfora Gold Project.
