High River sizes up Taparko gold property

Diamond drilling by High River Gold (HRG-T) has extended the strike lengths of two gold zones on the Taparko property in Burkina Faso, West Africa.

By spending US$5.9 million on exploration over four years, High River can earn a 61.5% interest from Incanore Resources, a private Canadian company which holds an 80% interest in the property. The remaining interest is held by the government of Burkina Faso.

In the latest program, six holes were drilled in the Zone 3 area and 19 holes in Zone 5.

Four of the holes drilled in Zone 3 encountered gold mineralization at a vertical depth of about 25 metres, whereas the others hit mineralization at a depth of 100 metres.

At Zone 5, 14 holes intersected mineralization at a vertical depth of 100 metres, while the remainder hit mineralization at a vertical depth of about 25 metres. Nine previously drilled holes at Zone 5 also intersected mineralization at a depth of 25 metres along a strike length of 320 metres.

Zone 3 has now been traced over 500 metres along strike, whereas Zone 5 has been intersected along a strike length of 600 metres at the 100-metre level.

Highlights from Zone 3 include: hole 143, which intersected 16.6 metres averaging 4.1 grams gold per tonne (including 5.4 metres grading 7.4 grams); hole 144, which hit 4.5 metres grading 1.4 grams (including 1.9 metres of 2.9 grams); hole 145, which yielded 4.5 grams over 10.8 metres (including 14.9 grams over 2.5 metres); hole 146, which returned 7.6 grams over 14.8 metres (including 12.6 grams over 6.6 metres); hole 147, which intersected 16.8 metres grading 0.9 gram; and hole 148, which returned 4.3 grams over 2.2 metres and 1 gram over 6.1 metres.

Zone 5

Drilling at Zone 5 returned gold grades ranging from a low of 0.5 gram over 25.9 metres (including a smaller zone of 2.9 metres grading 2.1 grams) to a high of 9.9 grams over 3.6 metres (which occurs within a wider, lower-grade intersection of 18.6 metres averaging 3 grams).

Eleven of the holes intersected high-grade zones within low-grade mineralization, with one of these holes intersecting more than one zone. The smallest core-intersection was 0.7 metre grading 8.9 grams gold, which was in a 14-metre core-length averaging 2.3 grams gold. Gold grades in intersections at the shallower level ranged from 1.9 to 14.1 grams over core lengths of 2-16.2 metres. Two of the holes intersected higher-grade mineralization within lower-grade material.

Zone 3 lies immediately south of Zone 5, which, in turn, is 4 km north of the GT zone, where a first phase of drilling extended the strike length of the prospect by 50% to 340 metres and downdip by 300% to 75 metres (T.N.M., Sept.

23/96). All zones are hosted by the 5-km Taparko structure, a shear zone containing parallel and subparallel, gold-mineralized quartz veinlets and veining. The host rock is an altered, metamorphosed volcanic sequence.

High River continues to drill Zone 3 in order to test mineralization at the 100-metre level. The company is also awaiting assay results from trench samples taken at a new showing discovered 15 km south of the Taparko shear.

The trenching work exposed a 2-to-3-metre-wide quartz vein, which was observed in two trenches to contain free gold. Previous outcrop samples returned values ranging from 1.7 to 26.98 grams gold over a distance of 200 metres.