Meridian Mining SE has announced that the Company is initiating its Coice de Cobra drilling campaign at the Espigão do Oeste project, in Rondônia Brazil.
Support crew have mobilized for immediate commencement of the first hole in the Cascavel target area.
"The commencement of the first ever drill campaign is the next step in fast-tracking exploration of this newly identified gold system," said Anthony Julien, President and CEO of Meridian. "Our trenching program has shown that multiple structures are present beneath the shallow soil cover, reaching widths of 3 – 4m. The combined drilling and trenching campaign will allow us to unlock the excellent exploration potential of the area."
Meridian first identified gold anomalies at its wholly-owned Espigão do Oeste project during stream geochemical surveys in 2016. The Coice de Cobra area was prioritized for evaluation based on a higher concentration of positive gold counts. The Company announced that it had initiated bedrock evaluation with a trenching program on June 14, 2017. The drill rig is now on site and is commencing its first drill holes at the Cascavel Target area, testing depth extensions to peak trench intervals of 3.8m @ 3.88g/t Au, including 1.8m @ 5.70g/t Au.
Ongoing reconnaissance trenching is currently focused on the Caninana and Jibóia target corridor areas. Bedrock exposure is limited and the program is evaluating the bedrock source to soil anomalies, which have peak values of 714ppb Au. Anomalies extend over strike lengths of 400 – 1000m and are associated with scattered anomalous rock chips, which have returned peak values of 9.8 g/t Au.
Structural evaluation and trenching is ongoing. Assays remain pending for trenches in the Caninana and Jibóia areas, where some strong silica-flooded alteration zones are present.
The focus of initial drilling will be to test targets over the top 10 – 50m, and progressively establish the depth of the oxide zone, the plunge of thickened vein zones, and the cross-strike footprint of the mineralized vein systems. Deeper targets will be developed as plunge controls on higher grade zones are established.