Projects |
Salamanca Project
Ormonde considers the Salamanca area to be one of the most prospective gold terrains in Spain and signed agreements in 2004-05 to earn a 90% interest in a group of permits by staged funding of exploration totalling €2.2 million over a five-year period. The permits, which are located in a historic tungsten producing area, cover mineral occurrences with potential for high-grade zones and several prospects where there has been no or only limited follow-up exploration. Drilling has been carried out on the most advanced targets in the permit area, which has successfully intersected both tungsten and gold mineralization. Barruecopardo Tungsten ProjectSee separate web page for details of this advanced-stage tungsten project. Pino de Oro Gold ProspectDrilling has been carried out on the Pino de Oro gold prospect in the Zamora Province, where previous drilling by Spanish government agencies in the 1990s intersected high-grade gold mineralization over 500 metres of strike length, with grades including 66 g/t, 15 g/t and 11 g/t gold over 1 to 2 metre intervals. This drilling tested the gold mineralization on 100 to 150 metre spaced sections, too wide for the estimation of JORC-compliant mineral resources. Ormonde's drilling programme is on closer spaced sections to more fully examine continuity and gold grade. The results of Ormonde's drilling programme were reported in August 2007 (see press release for details and table of results). This drilling validated the historic results and established that the first gold structure tested has a strike length in excess of 500 metres. These results are considered most encouraging and, coupled with some positive initial gold metallurgical testwork and presence of several other untested structures, ensure that Pino de Oro will be the focus of Ormonde's gold exploration programmes. Sierro Gold ProspectThe first drilling and trenching on a new prospect termed “Sierro” at its Salamanca Gold Project in western Spain has returned very encouraging wide gold intersections in a sheeted vein system. The Company identified its ground holdings in Salamanca as having potential to host large, granite-related gold systems and it now believes it may have located such a system.
Kerr Anderson, Managing Director, commented on these results, “These latest drilling and trenching results highlight the potential for new gold discoveries on our extensive exploration acreage in the Salamanca Project. In particular, the first hole drilled in Sierro supports our belief that the Salamanca area has the potential for large tonnage gold deposits. Although this is only one hole, it is possibly one of the most significant drilled in our gold programmes over the past few years, and we now intend to resume drilling on this prospect. In addition, our geochemical programmes continue to identify new drilling targets; most of the permit area has not been sampled to-date by such programmes.” Sierro Hole WS-1 intersected a series of sheeted quartz veins cutting metasediments, which can be traced up to the surface trench, and returned:
The style of sheeted quartz veining with an associated Ag-As-Bi-Sb geochemical signature and the considerable thickness of the gold mineralisation, are broadly similar to that seen in certain large tonnage gold deposits in other parts of the world (these include Dublin Gulch with a grade of 0.9 g/t gold – under evaluation; and Fort Knox with a grade of 0.8 g/t gold – in production, both in North America). The hole was collared in the middle of the gold anomaly, which is some 400 metres wide on this drill section, and has therefore only been partly tested by drillhole WS-1. A diagram is included in the PDF at www.ormondemining.com/doc/press/pr071101.pdf. Step-out drilling is now planned to test the lateral and vertical extent of the gold mineralisation in this first hole. In addition, these highly successful soil sampling programmes will be extended to the other prospective parts of the large permit area.
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