NEW DRILL RESULTS CONFIRM ECONOMIC POTENTIAL OF IOCG STYLE MINERALISATION AT EAGLE EYE
News Report
14 September 2004
African Eagle (The“Company”, LSE, AIM:AFE) today announces the first results from its 2004 drilling campaign at the Eagle Eye copper and precious metals project in Zambia. These initial results show wide mineralised zones up to 60 metres across with up to 0.75% copper.
Chris Davies, African Eagle’s Operations Director, commented “These new results confirm the potential for economic grades and widths within the volcanic host rocks. We are also conducting an airborne geophysical survey and a soil geochemical survey over the whole extent of these volcanic rocks. The next phase of our exploration programme at Eagle Eye will focus on unravelling the geological factors controlling the mineralisation and on exploring new potentially mineralised areas within the extensive volcanic sequence. We also plan to drill at the old Sasare gold mine, which also lies within the licence.”
The Eagle Eye project lies within African Eagle’s 100%-owned Sasare licence in eastern Zambia. Exploration conducted by African Eagle in 2003 revealed an extensive soil geochemical copper signature associated with widespread zones of hydrothermal alteration and outcropping copper mineralisation of iron-oxide-copper-gold style (IOCG). The limited drilling completed in 2003 defined mineralised zones up to 33 metres wide containing higher grade zones with up to 5% copper.
2004 Drill Campaign
The 2004 drill campaign at Eagle Eye, amounting to 23 percussion holes, commenced in late June and set out to test known copper, silver and gold occurrences within a belt of mineralised volcanic rocks approximately 28 by 2 kilometres in extent. The majority of these holes are being drilled at the Mweze prospect, which is situated near the centre of this belt. Laboratory turnaround of assay results has been extremely slow but results have now been received from about half the holes drilled. The remaining results are expected before the end of the month.
The results, in combination with the drilling undertaken in 2003, demonstrate the existence of a linear mineralised structure over several hundred metres at the Mweze prospect.
Significant intersections along this structure include:
| Hole | From (m) |
Interval (m) |
Copper (%) |
Silver (g/t) |
| MZR8 | 17 | 67 | 0.68 | |
| incl | 24 | 60 | 0.75 | 1.23 |
| and | 65 | 7 | 2.41 | 7.3 |
| MZR24 | 57 | 74 | 0.34 | |
| incl | 57 | 10 | 1.08 | 1.85 |
| 87 | 4 | 0.81 | 2.47 | |
| 95 | 5 | 0.86 | 3.14 | |
| 120 | 11 | 0.48 | ||
| MZR25 | 54 | 23 | 0.99 | |
| incl | 54 | 21 | 1.06 | |
| *MZR11 | 138 | 12 | 3.0 | |
| incl | 141 | 6 | 5.0 | |
| and | 138 | 9 | 14.5 | |
| *MZR6 | 15 | 33 | 0.5 | |
| incl | 18 | 3 | 12.5 | |
| *MZR9 | 36 | 12 | 1.1 | |
| incl | 39 | 9 | 6.6 | |
| and | 42 | 3 |
* 2003 drilling
The mineralised intersection in drillhole MZR8 equates to a true thickness of around 56 metres, indicating potentially economic grade and thickness, and lies beneath an 8m wide mineralised section grading 3.5% copper in a trench dating from the 1970’s. The mineralisation is hosted by intermediate volcanic rocks with an albite specularite breccia forming the footwall.
Exploration overview
In addition to the drilling, African Eagle has completed soil sampling and geological mapping over a continuation of the volcanic belt in a large fold structure south and east of Mweze, which is considered highly prospective. This work has already revealed a number of new occurrences of copper mineralisation. The Company is currently flying an airborne geophysical survey over the licence area, including the whole 28km-long volcanic belt and the old Sasare Gold Mine.
The new drill results, together with the airborne, geochemical and geological surveys, will help African Eagle’s geologists to determine the factors controlling the mineralisation. Once these controlling factors are understood, a programme of further drilling, including perhaps deep diamond drilling, will be implemented to evaluate the mineralisation.
In addition to the Eagle Eye IOCG target, the Sasare licence area contains the historic Sasare Gold Mine. Sasare was one of the first gold mines in Zambia and was worked intermittently from 1906 to 1942. Gold was mined from two gold-bearing structures approximately 2km apart along strike, with reported widths of 1 to 2m and average grades of 8.0 to 9.6g/t.
Exploration work at the old mine by previous licence holders revealed geochemical soil gold anomalies over both mineralised structures, with values over the western veins exceeding 1g/t over a strike length of more than 700m. Channel sampling in trenches across the mineralised structure returned values up to 6.2g/t.
African Eagle has now re-compiled the old mine plans and exploration data, and plans to conduct an exploratory programme of three drill holes to investigate the western mineralised structure.
John Park
Chairman
African Eagle Resources plc