Golden Deeps is preparing to launch a 10-hole diamond drilling programme at its Graceland Prospect in Namibia’s Otavi Mountain Land, where it will test three deep sulphide targets that the company believes could host a concealed mineralised system comparable to the historic Tsumeb mine, one of the world’s richest polymetallic deposits.
The programme marks the company’s first dedicated campaign to test deep induced polarisation (IP) targets identified beneath and along strike from the high-grade Gossan 1 and Gossan 1 East discoveries.
Stage One will comprise 10 diamond drillholes to depths of about 100 metres, targeting two chargeability anomalies interpreted to represent sulphide bodies extending below the known mineralisation.
A second phase will test deeper extensions of those targets together with the Gossan 1 Far East anomaly, the strongest IP target identified to date despite having no surface expression.
The company has already contracted a drilling rig and says that site access and preparation are underway ahead of drilling in the coming weeks.
Chief executive officer Jon Dugdale said the programme would test what the company regards as high-priority “Tsumeb-type” targets within the 800-metre-long Gossan 1 corridor after previous exploration returned exceptionally high-grade copper, silver, zinc, lead and germanium mineralisation.
“We are delighted to have secured a diamond drilling rig capable of testing the high-priority ‘Tsumeb-type’ targets within the Gossan 1 highly mineralised corridor at the Company’s Graceland Prospect. This drilling will follow up on the spectacular high-grade rockchip, channel sampling and shallow drilling results already received to date,” Dugdale said.
Golden Deeps believes the deeper targets could represent the continuation of a mineralised system similar in geometry to the Tsumeb deposit, located about 30 kilometres to the north.
The comparison is based on both geological setting and exploration results. Previous channel sampling at Graceland returned grades of up to 31.7% copper, 1,353 grams per tonne silver and 15.3% zinc.
In comparison, earlier shallow drilling intersected 3.48 metres grading 7.6% copper equivalent and 1.82 metres grading 16.6% copper equivalent beneath the gossan zones.
The company’s confidence has also been strengthened by three recently completed shallow diamond drillholes that intersected additional mineralised zones beneath Gossan 1 and Gossan 1 East.
Although laboratory assays are still pending, Golden Deeps said the mineralisation occurs within strongly brecciated fault zones comparable to those that hosted the world-class Tsumeb orebody, which produced 27 million tonnes grading 4.3% copper, 10% lead, 3.5% zinc, 95 grams per tonne silver and 50 grams per tonne germanium during its operating life.
The deeper drilling campaign is intended to determine whether the high-grade mineralisation exposed at the surface represents only the upper portion of a much larger concealed sulphide system.
According to the company, modelling of the IP survey has defined three significant chargeability anomalies extending for more than 800 metres east of Gossan 1 and remaining open both along strike and below 200 metres depth, providing the principal targets for the new drilling programme.
Graceland forms part of Golden Deeps’ 440-square-kilometre landholding in the Otavi Mountain Land, where the company is pursuing mineralisation in copper, silver, zinc, lead, germanium, gallium, and antimony within the same metallogenic belt that hosts the historic Tsumeb Mine, Kombat Mine, and Midas Minerals’ Otavi copper-silver discoveries.
Success in the forthcoming drilling programme would provide the first direct test of whether the geophysical anomalies conceal a deeper “Tsumeb-type” sulphide deposit beneath the Graceland discovery.
