Marvel Gold chases resource expansion at Tabakorole gold project

Junior explorer Marvel Gold (ASX: MVL) has kicked off an expansive drilling program at its Tabakorole gold project in southern Mali, targeting new discoveries and a continued expansion of the existing resource.

The company will start with approximately 15,000 metres of aircore drilling and 5,000m of reverse circulation work using a multi-purpose rig which is mobilising to site.

It will also complete 15,000m of auger drilling to follow-up numerous targets identified from multi-element soil geochemistry and magnetics.

The auger and aircore drilling will sample the interface between overlying soil and underlying geology at Tabakorole and are considered an important first-pass screening tool to identify potentially-economic concentrations of gold mineralisation for follow-up exploration.

The choice between auger and aircore drilling will be based on the depth of cover and the strength of the corresponding geochemical anomaly.

Reverse circulation infill drilling will be carried out at the north-west extension of the project and at other nearby targets thought to be accretive to the existing gold resource of 1.025 million ounces grading 1.2 grams per tonne.

Soil sampling

Marvel is also planning to carry out a soil sampling program on recently acquired licences around Tabakorole including Sirakourou Sud, Ngolobala, Tanhala and Naniola, as well as at the nearby Kolondieba project.

Other exploration activities will include a geophysical survey covering all of the southern Tabakorole tenements using high-resolution airborne magnetics and radiometrics to allow for future targeting.

Exploration potential

Executive director Chris van Wijk said the company was excited about Tabakorole’s exploration potential.

“We look forward to our first auger drilling program to test the geochemical targets generated from our first year of exploration at Tabakorole,” he said.

“We have a number of strong targets defined by gold in soils along with a range of pathfinders consistent with the project’s mineralisation signature [and we believe] any further discovery will be economically significant.”

Regional trends

Marvel has identified the promising Groot, Asgard, Astro and Wakanda regional trends which require follow-up work.

Groot is in the same structural corridor as Tabakorole and has been defined by three discrete geochemical anomalies highlighting similar elements including arsenic, tellurium and tungsten along with mineralised intersections of 4m at 1.3g/t gold from 8m and 4m at 2.7g/t gold from 20m.

Asgard is along strike from known mineralisation drilled at the T1 target including a standout intercept of 14m at 9.8g/t.

It comprises two geochemical anomalies with similar elemental associations to known mineralisation at Tabakorole.

Astro is the northwest continuation of the Asgard trend and contains a significant tellurium and tungsten anomaly, along with a discrete magnetic anomaly with coincident gold, arsenic, tungsten and tellurium near to the northern tenement boundary.

This anomaly is 300m to the south of known mineralisation on the Garalo tenement owned by London Stock Exchange-listed Contango Holdings.

Wakanda is defined by two regional shear zones which are visible in Marvel’s magnetic data.

The shears have coincident arsenic and gold anomalism in various places along strike, reported to be typical of shear systems in the Birimian terranes.