 Lati Permit Geology |
The 184 square kilometre Lati 2 Permit, located in the Boromo greenstone belt, covers a major north-south trending shear zone and a number of known but under-explored prospects as well as three active artisanal mining areas. The Lati 2 permit is about 150 km by road, of which about 100 km is paved, west of Ouagadougou, and lies 50 kilometres north of the Poura Gold Mine.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) conducted limited diamond drilling in the area of Prospect 1, reporting a 12m intercept grading 2.45 gpt Au. The Kwademen artisanal mining area has gold mineralization over an area of 1250m x 250m with isolated values up to 65 gpt Au occurs in quartz veins and veinlets in a sheared granites and felsic volcanics.
The Prospect 1 area is the site of rapidly expanding artisanal workings on the north end of the permit. The surface area of artisanal workings on Lati where miners have turned over and panned the top 2 metres of material has grown substantially since May 2011. Previously the surface area recorded in 2 principal sites was collectively 0.58 km2. By February 2012 the surface area of the artisanal workings on Lati in three principal sites was collectively 2.0 km2 with an estimated 3,000 artisanal workers panning the surface on Lati. Artisanal activity is recovering coarse grained gold, suggesting a proximal source.
These artisanal sites lie along the sheared contacts of a north-northeast trending 1500 metre wide band of bimodal volcanics and sediments surrounded by felsic intrusives. Mineralized quartz veins are common through this area, ranging from thin stockworks to metre-scale structures associated with regional scale shearing and fracturing mainly in mafic volcanic rocks. In 2011 Indigo conducted a campaign of soil sampling and grab sampling of quartz float over an 8 kilometre long strikelength. The results on these programs are shown in the following figures. Rock sampling returned values from trace to 11 gpt Au. The soil sampling defined two new soil anomalies 4.75km long by 100-750m wide and 1.5km long by 250-350m wide with values generally between 25 and- 5,000 ppb Au. These anomalies are shown on the soil geochemistry and RC Drilling maps as blue outlines.
 Lati RC Drilling Map (artisanal working area as of May 2011) |
 Lati Soil Geochemistry (soil anomalies outlined and highlighted in blue) |
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The Company completed a reverse circulation drill program to test the soil anomalies and artisanal sites in mid February 2012 with 50 RC holes totaling 6,500 metres. The entire drill program was a first pass prospecting effort, with 12 broad spaced drill transects (200m -1km apart) exploring a collective 7 kilometre long anomalous strikelength (see figure below). The eastern target was tested for 4 kilometres by 8 broad spaced drill transects. This target covers two areas of extensive artisanal workings. The drilling along this trend yielded numerous intercepts of elevated gold mineralization. A 2.5 kilometre long trend of wide (50-112m), low-grade (0.2-0.6 g/t Au) gold mineralization was discovered on the Eastern target and shown on Lines 8 through Line 12 below. The interpreted north trending alignment of the mineralized sections remains open along strike to the north and south. In addition, three of the four drill transects suggest the mineralization is still open to the west. This system is only partly overlapping with a large artisanal workings that covers an area at least 850 metres by 500 metres, the majority of which has not been drill tested yet. The granite contact approximately 200-300 metres to the east of the four transects is also suspected to be mineralized and has not been drill tested to date. The Northwest target area explored a 1 kilometre long trend of extensive artisanal workings by 4 drill transects numbered 1 through 4. The Northwest target is approximately 1 kilometre northwest of the Eastern target. The best intercept here was 4.16 g/t Au across 4m. This area reported a previous drillhole by UNDP of 12m grading 2.5 g/t Au. The drilling in the northwest target encountered multiple intercepts of elevated gold, however, were found to be narrow or too dispersed to generate substantial zones. Parts of the large artisanal workings remain untested by drilling. |
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(artisanal mining areas as of Mid February 2012) |
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The Company anticipates that artisanal wordings will have expanded since 2012, leaning itself to additional drill targets to be tested.