Olympus grabs bonanza gold grades

Vancouver — Some 7 km northwest of the Bai Go and Bai Dat zones, a mapping and sampling program by Olympus Pacific Minerals (OYM-V) has discovered a new area of high-grade gold mineralization on its Phuoc Son property in central Vietnam.

Dubbed Khe Rin, initial grabs samples across an 80-metre section returned up to 391.3 grams gold and 7 grams silver per tonne. The average grade of the 11 samples came in at 71.2 grams gold and 1 gram silver.

The samples were collected from the center of a 3-km-long north-striking shear zone. Mineralization is associated with calc-silicate alteration occurring as pyrite pyrrhotite, chalcopyrite and molybdenite. To date, mapping has outlined a 700-by-300-metre area of calc-silicate alteration with a 3-km-long by up to 700-metre-wide gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly. This “skarn-style” zone differs from the mineralization cut during last year’s drill program.

Over the past year, Olympus Pacific has focussed its efforts on drill testing the Dak Sa shear zone in the southeastern portion of the project. Drilling has tested the down dip extension of gold mineralization exposed within shallow artesian mine workings along the western limb of a northerly plunging anticline at Bai Dat, as well as the nearby Bai Go prospect.

The Bai Dat zone comprises gold, silver, and base metals mineralization hosted by quartz veins and breccias in greenschist metamorphics. The westerly dipping quartz vein system appears to have been folded near surface into a northerly plunging anticline. Veins are typically 1 to 4 metres thick with breccias and quartz-carbonate veinlets locally extending into the wall rocks. Open-pit and underground artisan miners have worked the vein over a 300-metre strike length along the anticline axis. The high-grade shoot was cut by 18 of the 32 holes drilled showing an average grade of 22.7 grams gold over 3.6 metres.

Moving 1-km to the north at Bai Go, mineralization is associated with multiple quartz veins that measure up to 44 metres in true thickness in the Dak Sa shear zone. To date, 15 of the 28 holes drilled intersected a bonanza grade gold shoot. The average grade for the holes came in at 13.2 grams gold over 5.3 metres.

Elsewhere at Phuoc Son, reconnaissance geological mapping and rock sampling have identified five additional prospects:

• The Khe Cop prospect, 7.5 km northwest of Bai Go, yielded 0.1-1.84 grams gold from a quartz-veined limonitic schist.
• The Khe Do prospect, 6 km northwest of Bai Go, returned 0.14-18.71 grams gold from a sulphidic schist.
• The Vang Nhe prospect, 6 km north-northwest of Bai Go, yielded 0.15-6.73 grams gold from samples taken from a limonitic schist.
• The Suoi Cay prospect, 5 km north of Bai Go, returned 33.75-36.60 grams gold from a sulphidic quartz vein.
• The Tra Long prospect yielded 0.54-3.87 grams gold from samples taken from a quartz veined limonitic schist.

The junior is currently running a detailed mapping and trench sampling program over the Khe Rin target in anticipation of drilling later this year.

Olympus Pacific holds a 57.2% stake in the project and is in negotiations to increase this to 67.4%. The remaining 32.6% belongs to Ivanhoe Mines (IVN-T). The project lies 140-km southwest of Danang.