African Aura Hits Gold In Cameroon

VANCOUVER — July is bringing big news out of African Aura Resources (AAZ-V): first, the junior announced plans to merge with Mano River Resources (MNO-V, MNRVF-O), then it hit some short, high-grade gold intercepts at its Batouri project in Cameroon.

African Aura has results in hand for the first four holes of a 30-hole, second-phase drill program at Batouri. The current program, like the last, is focused on the Kambele prospect, which is located in the centre of the 1,000-sq.-km project in eastern Cameroon.

Each hole intercepted several mineralized intercepts. Hole 68 first hit gold at 11 metres depth, returning 10.61 grams gold per tonne over 1.5 metres, then hit mineralization again at 25 metres down-hole, returning 5.78 grams gold over 9 metres. At 66 metres depth, the drill hit 1.61 grams gold over 1 metre; finally at 87 metres, the drill returned 12.57 grams gold over 4 metres.

Collared 100 metres west, hole 69 also hit its best intercepts near surface: 10.71 grams gold over 4.1 metres from 38 metres downhole, followed by 43.56 grams gold over 2 metres at 46 metres. The drill also encountered four 1-metre intercepts grading less than 1 gram gold at less than 100 metres depth.

Hole 67, collared 100 metres east of hole 68, returned five short intercepts in 53 metres of drilling, the best of which assayed 1.39 grams gold over 3 metres from just 5 metres depth. And hole 72 hit four intercepts: 0.95 gram gold over 1.5 metres from 20 metres depth, 3.32 grams gold over 2 metres at 64 metres below surface, 2.7 grams gold over 4 metres a few metres later, and finally, 1.13 grams gold over 1 metre from 80 metres downhole.

African Aura says assay results from another 25 holes, some of which contain visible gold, are expected during July.

The first phase of drilling at Kambele, completed in 2008, also returned promising intercepts, such as 65.9 grams gold over 2.7 metres, 49.16 grams gold over 1.5 metres, 43.3 grams gold over 1.5 metres, and 131.95 grams over 1 metre.

Results to date define a shallowly dipping gold target comprising two or more sub-horizontal, subparallel zones of quartz veining. Each of the zones is up to 10 metres thick; both dip slightly to the north and remain open downdip. To date, the target has been traced for 500 metres along strike and 700 metres downdip.

The current drill program is designed to delineate an initial inferred resource at Kambele. The 30 holes are arranged along five fences spaced 100 metres apart, covering an area that has been worked extensively by artisanal miners.

Aura has been working at Batouri since 2006, completing a soil-sampling program, a combined induced-polarization-resistivity survey, and one drill program. The property sits between a tropical rainforest to the south and an open-tree savannah to the north and is accessible by road from the capital Yaounde, 420 km west.

On news of the Batouri results, African Aura’s share price gained 5¢ to close at 13¢. The company has a 52-week trading range of 2.5- 20.5¢ and 67 million shares outstanding.