Africa-focused Altus Strategies Plc announces results from its recently completed first phase exploration programme at its 100% owned, 466km2 Zolowo gold project in Lofa County, north-western Liberia.
Initial reconnaissance has identified over 50 alluvial gold mining sites. The largest mining site mapped to date is approximately 250m long and 50m wide
Licence hosts a 33km long Archaean greenstone belt which is the likely gold source.
A systematic stream sediment sampling programme will now be undertaken
Steven Poulton, Chief Executive, commented:
“We are very encouraged by the significant number and scale of the artisanal alluvial gold mining operations discovered at Zolowo. It seems likely that the primary source for the gold is associated with the Archaean age greenstone belt that transects the licence for approximately 33km. The belt sits on the same regional geological trend as the New Liberty Gold Mine which is owned and operated by Avesoro Resources Inc. The Archaean greenstones of western Liberia are still relatively unexplored. This is despite their geological setting being analogous to many famous gold mines and camps such as at Kerr-Addison in Ontario, the Golden Mile in Kalgoorlie and Homestake in the United States. A follow up systematic stream sediment programme is now being planned and we look forward to updating shareholders in due course.”
The following figures have been prepared and relate to the disclosures in this announcement and are visible in the version of this announcement on the Company's website (www.altus-strategies.com) or in PDF format by following this link: http://altus-strategies.com/site/assets/files/4300/zolowo.pdf
Geology and artisanal workings within Zolowo licence is shown in Figure 2.
Photos of typical alluvial gold mining sites at Zolowo is shown in Figure 3.
Reconnaissance exploration programme
Zolowo was selected after comprehensive in-house analysis of available datasets including geological maps, historic mineral occurrences and satellite imagery. An initial reconnaissance exploration programme has now been completed at Zolowo. The objective of the programme was to verify a number of potential artisanal mining sites, as interpreted from the remote sensing programme.
The prospecting work has confirmed the presence of numerous artisanal alluvial gold mining sites. Over 50 separate workings have now been visited by Altus to date, clustered within the central part of the licence. Of these, 35 were found to be active and the largest extended for approximately 250m. At each working up to 25 artisanal miners were found to be selectively mining gold bearing gravels, often at the boundary between saprolite and bedrock. It was reported that gold has been mined in this way from the Zolowo area since the 1930’s. As part of the reconnaissance programme a number of hard rock samples have been collected for assaying.
Figure 1: Location of the Zolowo project in north-western Liberia