EXPLORATION — Robex evaluates new Diangount target

Further work is under way at the Diangount property in western Mali as operator Robex Resources (RBX-M) begins to assess an ultramafic intrusion in the northern part of the property.

Robex, which is earning an 85% interest in the concession from a Malian company, noted the potential of the intrusion in a geochemical survey in 1997. The intrusion surrounds the LaCorne gold placer, an area where local craft miners, or orpailleurs, have worked the laterite and saprolite layers for gold.

Samples of leached lateritic crust showed gold concentrations around the La Corne placer but also showed some unusually high metal values near the northern limit of the survey, in an area underlain by ultramafic intrusive rocks. Samples contained 0.05% vanadium, 0.1% copper and 0.1 gram gold per tonne.

The intrusion’s southern margin crosscuts a northeasterly trending corridor of known gold mineralization, known as the Dialaki-La Corne corridor, and its northern margin similarly crosscuts the Tomoronkolon corridor to the north. The presence of hydrothermally altered contact breccias at both margins suggests that the ultramafic body may have played some part in the development of gold mineralization in the country rocks.

The gold concentrations encountered in the geochemical survey are comparable to those over the Loulo gold deposit, about 120 km to the southeast, where samples from leached crust have graded between 0.05 and 0.2 gram gold per tonne. South African mining house Randgold is bringing the deposit into production.

Robex intends to carry out mapping and surface sampling, followed by sampling of fresh rock in areas where the surface sampling finds high metal values. Rotary air-blast drilling is also planned.