The gold-platinum-palladium enriched Central Mineralised Zone at Colossus Minerals‘ (CSI-T) Serra Palada project plunges gently southwestward away from the surface area that was historically mined out by artisanal miners in what became the largest precious metals rush in Latin American history. The other main zone at Serra Pelada is the GT zone on the lower limb of the folded siltstone in an iron-rich breccia.
Little exploration has been undertaken outside of the two main ore zones, which are the focus of the project’s current development via an underground decline. Recently, however, Colossus has started a soil geochemical program targeting new areas of the land package to determine its exploration potential and has discovered “extensive anomalies” from soil geochemical work and follow-up augur drilling.
Highlights from 5,277 soil geochemical samples collected outside the current Serra Pelada resource delineation area included 736 samples of combined gold-platinum-palladium over 0.1 parts per million (ppm),;163 samples over 0.5 ppm; and 73 samples over 1.0 ppm with a maximum value of 21.9 ppm. (One part per million is the equivalent of 1 gram per metric tonne.)
The samples outlined an area greater than 50 hectares (half a square kilometre) in the Elefante and Young Garimpo sections of gold-platinum-palladium surface anomalies. Initial augur drilling of the anomalies intersected high grades in each of the areas including 124.78 grams gold per tonne, 6.52 grams platinum per tonne and 7.67 grams palladium per tonne over 1.5 metres in Elefante and 3.79 grams gold, 0.68 gram platinum and 2.57 grams palladium over 1.5 metres. The intercepts were determined a cut-off grade of 0.3 gram gold-platinum-palladium per tonne.
Eight augur hoes in the Elefante area encountered highly anomalous values in mineralized bedrock siltstones including 0.68 gram gold, 1.42 grams platinum and 1.0 gram palladium over 1.5 metres in hole 16 and 2.14 grams gold, 1.46 grams platinum and 8.09 grams palladium over 1.0 metre in hole 17.
Key findings of the program so far suggest that the rock types in the south and southeast portion of the property are similar to those found in the main mineralized corridor but belong to a separate sedimentary package. Colossus has also confirmed that the deformation in the Young Garimpo and Elefante areas is similar to that found in the area of the Central Mineralised Zone and furthermore that the Young Garimpo and Elefante areas have a number of exploration pits and working shafts that are indicative of garimpeiro (artisanal miner) work.
“Our ongoing development and new appreciation of the property wide exploration potential will allow us to provide some exciting news in the coming months,” Claudio Mancuso, the company’s president and chief executive, said in a prepared statement.
Serra Pelada is being developed as a joint-venture project between Colossus and Coomigasp, a Brazilian-registered cooperative company representing the garimpeiros who had mined Serra Pelada.
At presstime Colossus was trading at $7.26 per share within a 52-week trading range of $5.14-9.87 per share. The company has about 104.9 million shares outstanding.
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