Castle nails “21-gram dirt” at Ghanaian gold prospect

Castle Minerals’ latest intercepts from 23 holes drilled for 2793 metres at its remarkable Kpali gold prospect in Ghana include a string of decent hits, with a best grade assayed in a 1m run at 20.66 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from 41m depth.

A further hole produced the longest intercept of 19m averaging 2.93g/t gold, which includes 4m going 5.43g/t gold from 84m and 6m at 4.19g/t gold from 115m. The hit is a highlight thick run in the deeper half of the hanging wall at the prospect.

The third longest run in the batch also delivered a solid performance of 12m assaying 3.52g/t gold from 138m, including 4m at 7.17g/t gold from 140m.

The latest drilling program further reinforces the current interpretation of a multi-lode system at Kpali with a relatively thick hanging wall gold zone, which carries multiple longer runs of higher-grade gold.

A more structurally complex separate footwall mineralised zone lies about 12m to 25m east of and roughly parallel to the hanging wall. The footwall zone extends along-strike for about 650m and may be as deep as 120m.

It splits and merges repeatedly and appears to be made up of more single, narrower gold intercepts than the hanging wall zone, with almost all intercepts confined tightly within the lode margins.

The hanging wall zone appears to be shorter in overall strike - currently about 300m long - and has been defined to a depth of about 120m.

The best value intercept of 1m at 20.66g/t gold from the latest results extends the hanging wall mineralisation a further 40m north.

The defined mineralised zone at Kpali is currently thickest where both footwall and hanging walls coincide. Their spatial coincidence appears to be directly associated with a granodiorite body, which lies hard up against the eastern side of the footwall complex, around which the lowermost footwall zone is closely wrapped.

The granitoid will likely have opened up multiple flexures and sites for mineralising fluids and may be at least a partial origin of the multiple footwall lodes.

Interestingly, where drilling on one section punched deep enough to penetrate the granitoid, no gold is recorded within it.

Further up-dip on the 19m headline hit – near where the hanging wall lode would project to surface - one of the latest holes yielded 9m at 3.47g/t gold from 5m, including 3m at 8.21g/t gold from 9m, 6m at 2.67g/t gold from 18m and 6m at 2.03g/t gold from 29m.

Combined with other encouraging hits, the hanging wall lode in this section could make a big contribution to the gold inventory in Castle’s future modelling and warrants further definitive drilling.

Other footwall hits include the third longest hole in this batch of results, which intercepted 12m assaying 3.52g/t gold from 138m. The results also show the footwall is well-mineralised and open to the south and at depth.

The Kpali gold project continues to grow in stature with the latest RC drilling campaign at the namesake Kpali prospect, delivering a raft of high-grade intercepts that confirm the presence of two very robust and consistently mineralised lodes over a 650m north-south strike.

Castle’s Kpali prospect is one of several in the company’s broader Kpali gold project.

It is part of what could become a new gold district discovered by Castle in Ghana’s emerging northern gold province, a region showcased by Cardinal Resources’ 5.1-million-ounce Namdini and Azumah Resources’ 2.8-million-ounce Black Volta gold projects.

At the Bundi prospect, 4.5 kilometres north of Kpali, results from five reverse circulation holes will be released in the coming weeks. That drilling program was the first put into the prospect in more than 10 years.

The Bundi program was designed to infill and extend mineralisation identified in two previous reverse circulation programs, which intercepted a heady 1m at 51.03g/t gold from 168m and 6m at 3.32g/t gold from 37m. Therefore, the company has high hopes for the imminent results.

The Bundi results will be followed by others from a recently completed 10-hole reverse circulation program at the company’s Kandia gold project, 110km northeast of Kpali.

Within the past nine months, Castle has run three successful drilling campaigns and plans to maintain this momentum with additional reverse circulation drilling at its Kpali and Kandia prospects, possibly starting in September.

Until then, the company is planning to kick off a series of auger drilling campaigns at both projects and on Castle’s broader tenure to firm up several historical targets and to generate new ones for drill testing later this year.

Castle’s endeavours at Kpali are being driven by its geological setting on the convergence of two major greenstone belts – the Bole-Bolgatanga and WaLawra/Boromo belts - and three regional-scale structures associated with gold mineralisation.

That geological and structural coincidence sustains the idea the Kpali project could sit at the centre of a 1500-square-kilometre area harbouring a major new West African gold camp.

Castle has accumulated evidence from all its known prospects in the project area

over the years to support the theory. The company’s Kpali, Bundi, Kpali East, Wa South East and Wa South West prospects could collectively represent the surface exposures of a potential bonanza and offer clues pointing towards a major gold province where previously there had been few gold indications.

With all the evidence in mind, few would argue against progressing exploration of the region with increasingly assertive campaigns to follow up known mineralisation and where possible, extend it.

Castle plans to design future drilling over coming weeks, aided by the latest encouraging results and a handful more still to come.

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