Megado’s geologists discover visible gold during fieldwork at Chakata

During fieldwork Megado Gold (ASX: MEG) geologists have discovered visible gold in outcropping quartz veins ahead of its maiden drilling program at Chakata in Ethiopia.

The fieldwork has continued to identify artisanal workings across the project as well as visible gold in outcropping mineralisation.

Commenting on the fieldwork success, Megado chief executive officer and managing director Michael Gumbley said a review of historical exploration had already confirmed Chakata as “incredibly prospective”.

“Now that the team has been able to commence early works, they report a massive, extensive quartz tourmaline vein to the southwest of the GT prospect, we are keen to start testing our high priority targets.”

“Artisanal miners are currently manually excavating the vein in and around the GT prospect, regularly producing rock chips with gold visible to the naked eye.”

Historical gold results

According to Megado, a review of historical exploration yielded “highly significant results”.

Trench sampling at the GT prospect had uncovered 47m at 1.55 grams per tonne gold, including 25m at 2.57g/t gold.

This target remains open at depth and hasn’t been drilled.

Meanwhile, limited exploration at other areas of the Chakata returned 2m at 11.15g/t gold and 0.6m at 6.47g/t gold.

Advancing Chakata

Megado is currently drilling at the Babicho project, which is also in Ethiopia.

Once drilling is completed at Babicho, the rig will be mobilised to Chakata to test GT and other targets.

Megado already has a team onsite at Chakata to prepare rig access and drill pads.

Meanwhile, geologists are continuing with fieldwork with a “multitude of new targets” identified.

“Previous exploration efforts at Chakata do not appear to have adequately led to a full understanding of its mineralisation potential, resulting in minimal drilling of what appear to be obvious high priority prospects,” Megado stated.

Chakata is located on southern Ethiopia’s Adola gold belt and is 5km along strike from the country’s largest producing gold mines Lega Dembi and Sakaro.

Megado claims the structure that hosts these 3 million ounce mines extends south through Chakata and is “readily identifiable” in geophysical imagery.