Project: | Leopard Rock |
Commodity: | Gold |
Royalty: | 2.5 % NPI |
Subsidiary: | Auramin Ltd |
Location: | Liberia |
Deposit Style: | Shear-hosted gold (Archaean greenstone belts) |
Key Attributes: | Within 50 km of the 1.3 Moz New Liberty Au mine |
Asset Stage: | Reconnaissance drilling |
Results: | 4 m @ 17 g/t Au; 6 m @ 9 g/t Au (drill-hole) |
Next Phase of Work: | Resource definition drilling |
Deal Partner: | Avesoro Resources |
Deal Terms: | 2.5 % NPI |
The Leopard Rock prospect is part of the 457 km2 Bea Mountain Mining Licence that is currently held by Avesoro Resources in western Liberia, approximately 100 km northwest of the capital city, Monrovia. It is located in the northern part of the licence area, roughly 40 km northeast of the New Liberty Gold Mine and roughly 2 km southeast of the Ndablama prospect. The target area is underlain by Archaean greenstones comprising amphibolite gneisses and ultramafic schists situated within the pressure shadow of the adjacent granitic batholith and along the western margin of a shallow westerly-dipping shear. This deformation zone is gently folded around the edge of the intrusion forming an open west-plunging anticline that is the key host of mineralisation. Gold is associated with shear-hosted disseminated sulphides and hydrothermal alteration, namely silicification, magnetite destruction, phlogopite and chlorite.
Exploration Programme
Exploration across the Leopard Rock and Ndablama prospects began in 2007 with a series of channels highlighting the potential for gold mineralisation within the granitoid's pressure shadow. A significant soil sampling programme was then undertaken on a 50 m x 100 m grid which defined a 13 km long gold-in-soil anomaly up to 100 m wide - this zone coincided with the margin of the granitoid and the southern extents formed the basis of the Ndablama and Leopard Rock prospects. An induced polarisation survey was then carried out by Fugro in 2012 over a 1.8 km2 area which outlined a 500 m zone of potential sulphide mineralisation in between these two areas of interest, and suggests both prospects are hosted by a continuation of the same NW-SE trending structure. Subsequent trenching and channeling at Leopard Rock confirmed the presence of sub-surface gold with highlights including 11 m @ 6.4 g/t Au and 4 m @ 6.4 g/t Au, and the initial 24-hole drilling programme subsequently returned intercepts of 4 m @ 17.6 g/t Au, 6 m @ 9.4 g/t Au and 4 m @ 13.9 g/t Au.