Challenger Exploration confirms true width of mineralisation at El Guayabo gold-copper project
Challenger Exploration is targeting the release of a maiden mineral resource estimate for Main Discovery Zone next month.
A phase two drilling program by Challenger Exploration (ASX: CEL) at the El Guayabo gold-copper project in Ecuador’s El Oro province has confirmed the mineralisation has a true width over 500 metres along its current 700m strike extent.
Drilling of six holes was conducted at the GY-A anomaly along the Main Discovery Zone to enable the reporting of a maiden mineral resource estimate.
All holes are reported to have intersected more than 100 gram per metres of mineralisation from near surface, with three ending in mineralisation.
Best assays
Highlights were: 1,190m at 0.3 grams per tonne gold equivalent including 369.5m at 0.6g/t and 101m at 0.8g/t; 871.8m at 0.3g/t including 275.3m at 0.5g/t, including 67.9m at 0.6g/t; and 689.5m at 0.3g/t including 317.7m at 0.5g/t gold equivalent.
Also reported was an intercept of 375.2m at 0.3g/t gold equivalent including 194.2m at 0.5 g/t , which extended the high-grade “copper breccia” at the Main Discovery Zone downdip from historical drilling and confirmed the mineralisation is continuous over 250m of strike and remains open at depth.
Drilling also intersected a new style of mineralisation with one of the holes encountering an epithermal vein above the main mineralisation zone and returning an intersection of 1.3m at 231.3g/t gold.
Continuous mineralisation
Challenger managing director Kris Knauer said the results confirm continuous mineralisation on the Main Discovery Zone over at least 700m of strike with the potential to host a bulk gold deposit of significant scale.
“This set of results has produced our widest intersection to date at 1.2 kilometres of mineralisation from near surface to the end of the hole,” he said.
“The 14 gold-soil anomalies we have drilled so far have produced gold intercepts and seven of these are now high-priority targets which appear capable of hosting a significant bulk gold resource.”
He said the company would be targeting the release of a maiden mineral resource estimate for Main Discovery Zone next month.