Columbus Gold announces that it has entered into an agreement in July 2018 with IAMGOLD Corporation to acquire up to a 70% interest in Maripa.
Maripa is located along a paved national road, approximately 50 kilometers south of the capital city of Cayenne. The project is comprised of up to five contiguous exploration permits that cover an area of 120 square kilometers. It adjoins to the south the Boulanger project being developed by the Barrick Gold / Reunion Gold (TSX-V: RGD) joint-venture.
The geological setting at Maripa is similar to IAMGOLD’s world-class Rosebel gold mine (15.2 Moz) in neighboring Suriname.
Past exploration at Maripa includes 134 core holes, for a total of 9,000 metres, which partially defined five (5) broad gold zones, namely Changement, Filon Dron, Maripa Sud-Est, Rhyodacite and Filon Scieur. Drilling was limited to shallow depths within the oxidized saprolite layer with all five prospects returning drill intersections of economic interest with demonstrated potential for expansion and mineral resource delineation. Additionally, several gold-in-soil geochemical anomalies remain untested.
Relogging of the historical drill core and validation of the database for future resource estimates is anticipated to be completed by late August. In conjunction with this work, field validation of drill hole locations and prospecting is being conducted over priority drill targets. At present, the field crew is centred over the Filon Dron prospect, tested by only 10 holes, which returned two of the best gold intersections at Maripa: 4.3 g/t gold over 36 metres and 2.5 g/t gold over 25.5 metres. Relogging of the Filon Dron drill core is complete. Surface oxidation is deep over the prospect with 80 to 100 metres of saprolite cover, which increases the potential for oxide ore.
A regional 256 km2 high-resolution LiDAR topographic survey with orthophoto coverage was completed in September 2018. Tenders were received from contractors/consultants to conduct a detailed airborne magnetic and radiometric geophysical survey at 100-metre line spacing covering the same area. The survey will be flown during the upcoming dry season extending from September to November. The geophysical data will be merged with the LiDAR topographic data for regional and target specific geological/structural modelling and interpretation.