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Thick, high grades up to 202g/t point to ‘bulk tonnage gold deposits’ at Arakaka

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Special Report: A new high-grade gold discovery at the Arakaka project in South America caps off a fantastic 2019 for junior explorer Alicanto Minerals.

In mid 2019, Alicanto’s (ASX:AQI) main focus turned to the famously rich Bergslagen volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) mining district of Southern Sweden – where the explorer is already having outstanding success.

READ: Alicanto hits an astonishing 9.5pc copper, 16g/t gold & 8.2pc zinc from maiden drilling

But the early stage Arakaka project in Guyana, South America, still represents substantial bonus upside for Alicanto shareholders.

The 300sqkm area produced more than 1 million ounces of alluvial and near surface gold over a century of mining, Alicanto says.

That gold has to come from somewhere.

Previously held by companies including gold major Newmont, more than $58m had been spent on exploration by the time Alicanto acquired the project in 2013 for about $780,000.

 

In June last year — As part of its pivot toward base metals exploration in Sweden – Alicanto inked an exploration and potential purchase deal with major gold miner Nordgold worth $11.6m.

Nordgold is big league. In 2018, it produced 907,000oz for revenues of $1.7 billion from 10 mines around the world.

Nordgold can acquire Arakaka by fully funding $4.3m in exploration over the next year. After this, it can give Alicanto an extra $7.3m to finalise the acquisition.

To date, Alicanto has completed an initial 10,478m of this fully funded diamond drilling around the Purple Heart prospect area, representing just 1.4km of the main ~12km gold-rich trend.

Early results are exciting, Alicanto says, and point to “bulk tonnage gold deposits” in the Purple Heart area.

Assays include 0.5m at 202.4g/t gold, inside a larger 19.05m intersection grading 7.43g/t, 260.75m from surface. Anything above 5g/t is generally considered high grade.

 

This drilling at Arakaka in Guyana represents the first time there has been targeted diamond drilling on the prolific gold producing Arakaka Main Trend, Alicanto chief exec Peter George says.

“These initial encouraging high-grade results from the first batch of assay returns not only demonstrates the continuity of mineralisation throughout the area but also indicates that multiple high-grade gold shoots exist within the shallowly dipping, stacked mineralised structures,” he says.

“These high-grade shoots have an apparent, shallow, north plunge which will be the focus of further drilling following the geological integration of the current drilling.”

Alicanto also identified previously unrecognised high-grade gold shoots – traced down plunge to 500m and remaining ‘open’ — which could be “of significant scale”.

“I am very pleased for the team to have discovered what we always firmly believed was in the ground at Guyana,” George says.

“This success combined with intersecting high-grade massive sulphides in our maiden drilling program in Sweden, caps off a fantastic year for the Alicanto team and I am looking forward to what we will achieve in 2020.”

 

Watch below 90 seconds with Peter George, CEO of Alicanto Minerals (ASX:AQI).

 

 

NOW LISTEN: Explorers Podcast — The sweets of mining in Sweden, high-grade VMS and Guyanese gold

 

 
This story was developed in collaboration with Alicanto, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.
Categories: Mining

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