AGORACOM Small-cap Investor Relations Blog

VANCOUVER, BC, Dec 8, 2020 /CNW/ – Tajiri Resources Corp. (the “Company”) (TSXV: TAJ) is delighted to report initial results from first pass RC drilling at the Morley Prospect situated within the Company’s 1,162km2 Reo Gold Project, located at the confluence of the prolific Hounde, Boromo and Goren Greenstone Belts, Burkina Faso (Figure 1). The shallow, 23 hole program intercepted consistent gold mineralization including:

Results of all drill holes are given in the Table at the end of this document and shown in Figure 2.

The results reported today are the product of a drill program designed as a first test of Tajiri’s new model for the orientation of mineralisation at Morley.  These results, when combined with historic drill intersections, largely confirm the new model and opens new and hitherto sparsely to completely unexplored strike and dip directions to expand Morley.  Historic results include:

1All historic intercepts are from drilling at a variety of azimuths and dips to mineralisation and individual intersections may not be representative of true widths and may vary ~ 20 to 80% from true width. New results are interpreted as being within 80-90% of true widths. 

Summary

• Tajiri’s maiden drill program, importantly, confirms a new orientation model for gold mineralisation at Morley which is situated in a belt scale deformed granite and lies within 800m of the northern and 1,000m of the western granite-greenstone contact (Figure 1). 
  
• Exploration at Morley is still at an early stage- historically it has returned high grades from drill holes over widths that make it a high priority target but a coherent model of the orientations and structural controls of mineralisation was never previously established.
  
• Our drilling shows the main mineralised zone at Morley has a WNW strike and dips -50˚ northeast.  Strike is subparallel to a set of crosscutting shear zones which occur over a width of about 2km at Morley and are axial to a major 40˚ flexure in the strike of the granite-greenstone belt from ENE to NNE (Figure 6).
  
• Most Importantly confirmation of the new model opens-up on strike and down dip potential into very sparsely explored or totally unexplored areas both immediately and further along strike (Figures 4,5 & 6).
  
• A very favourable target is now in play:  only 1,000m WNW along strike, the “Morley structure” cross cuts the ENE trending sheared granite-greenstone contact of the Morley host granite. Empirically, granite-greenstone contacts are a favoured location for high grade gold deposits in Burkina such as M1 South, Siou and Yaramoko (Figure 6). 
  
• This target area is under alluvial cover and has never been sampled and represents a first order opportunity for Tajiri.  
  
• At Morley mineralisation presents as high-grade narrower veins within broader halos of low-grade sericite + carbonate +/- pyrite shearing.  It is expected that veins may have an orientation oblique to shearing and there may be at least two sets (Figure 3).  
  
• While drilling has broadly confirmed the strike and dip of the model it requires further work on the details to explain grade and thickness variations within the mineralised zones.  This is likely the influence of a second structural direction on vein set orientation within the shear zones and/or the presence of intersections with other structures of different orientations.
  
• Several lines of evidence point to the second structural control being either NNE or ENE with a likely 50˚-60˚ north dip.  Strike of the second structural control is therefore subparallel to the major belt scale shear zones in the area.
  
• Balance of evidence suggests the high-grade intersections returned in KRAC128 (8m @ 54.2g/t) and MTRC 022 (3m @ 30.9g/t), which we drilled as a scissor hole, are from a NNE striking vein which dips 50˚ to 60˚ to the west or it is the intersection of ENE and NNE vein sets with ~50˚ degree dips to the west.  ENE strike projections of this vein have been adequately tested by historic drilling but not NNE directions as most N-S oriented RC drillholes are subparallel to this direction.  Significantly this vein in RC chips appears to have a different character to those of other vein zones drilled during the program appearing to be more of a laminated style.  
  
• Historic close spaced (50m x 50m) auger drilling to sample top of saprolite in the immediate vicinity of the Prospect confirmed WNW, as well as NNE and ENE trends as anomalous and the close spaced auger anomaly remains open in all of those directions (Figure 4)
  
• Historic scout drilling oriented on NW-SE lines, intersected thin or low-grade mineralisation on ENE and possibly NNE trends (Figure 4).
  
• There is a good potential for Morley to be a stacked lode system with gross strike controlled by ENE or NNE bounding shears and main lodes in crosscutting WNW strike and NE dip orientations.   This possibility remains poorly tested but could lead to Morley becoming a substantial stand-alone deposit (Figure 5).
  
• Prospect has excellent opportunities to host high grade intersection shoots, but suspected plunge directions and best intersection structures still need to be determined.  
  
• Demonstrating that WNW structures are mineralised has important implications for exploration elsewhere within the Reo Project as historic sampling patterns are orthogonal to the NE trending main belt structures and thus poorly oriented to test potentially WNW mineralised structures
  
• Given the above potential two structural controls, drilling has been paused temporarily to gather more structural data to optimise drill directions.  To this end the company will embark on a focussed deep trenching program to gather structural data and vein orientation data before re-commencing drilling at the prospect scale.   Trenching will commence early Q1 2021 after a contracted excavator finishes work at the K4-K5 Prospect, 20km to the south. 
  
• Close space power auger drilling is being planned to step out along potential strike directions in the immediate vicinity of Morley prior to further work
  
• RAB/ Aircore rig options being investigated to test granite greenstone contact target WNW of Morley.

Chairman’s Comment

Executive Chairman, Dominic O’Sullivan remarked:

“I am simply thrilled that with the Company’s first modest expenditure in Burkina of about USD200,000, we have not only returned some great results but have also established several fairways along which Morley might grow from a modest sized prospect into a potentially much larger one.

We are developing our understanding of the deposit, starting from a rather higgledy piggledy set of drilling with holes and grades going in all directions, into a geologically cogent framework that demonstrates potential for a lot more at Morley.   It fits our philosophy – find a poorly understood or overlooked discovery, in a Tier one address and do the hard yakka, looking at all the data from every angle, then follow-up with smart prudent focused exploration.

I’m particularly enthused about the on-strike potential generated by confirming that WNW oriented structures at Morley host gold mineralisation, especially just west of Morley, where the “Morley Structure,” smashes an 800m sinistral displacement into a sheared granite-greenstone contact which itself has a dextral reverse sense of movement.   This creates a WNW trending granite-greenstone contact, hugged by the Morley structure for about 800m of strike.  That spells a lot of dilation on favourable structures and lithological contrasts. What’s not to like about that?  As it’s under cover, never seen before, I feel it’s a bit like a little Chrissy prezzie for us-  still under the tree, all wrapped up and we can’t wait to open it.”

Details of the Morley Drill Program

Results reported today are Tajiri’s first steps in our exploration at Morley and as a necessary first precedent to further work it has focused on defining the orientation of mineralisation.   Historically, the orientation of mineralisation has been poorly constrained, and several equivocal interpretations could fit historic data due to the following:

• Drilling was conducted blind because of a thin veneer (3-10m thick) of cover overlying the Prospect;
• Morley is hosted by a single relatively undifferentiated granite lithology and a lack of other lithologies meant models could only be constructed by grade interpolation;
• Morley lies in a zone of considerable structural complexity, near the focus of a change in the gross strike of the granite-greenstone belt of 40˚ from ENE to NNE, and major and lessor shears of both orientations together with numerous WNW, NNW, EW and minor N-S orientations transect the area (see Figure 6);
• all structures or their intersections could be potential fairways for mineralisation and all structural orientations can be associated with some form of gold anomalism, though the ENE- NNE orientations appear to dominate the distribution of gold anomalism on a regional scale;
• drilling to date has been suboptimal to test all possible mineralised orientations and drilling has mostly been oriented either:
  • North-south and predominantly drilled to the south or
  • On NW-SE oriented scout drill lines of 200-400m spacing with alternate lines drilled to either the SE or NW.

In our new model, gold mineralisation which occurs as sheeted high grade quartz veins, within low grade sericite + carbonate +/- pyrite altered shear zones hosted by a syntectonic belt scale granitoid is comprised of several 1-20m thick, NW-WNW striking lodes which dip between 40˚and 55˚ to the NE.  The best historically drilled lode, “the Main Lode” where current drilling has focused, has a known strike length of about 300m.    

Results announced today are highly supportive of our new model and intersections mostly occur where the model predicted.  Drill results returned to date demonstrate good apparent down-dip coherence with our model and continuity of between 100m and 150m (100m vertically below surface- base of current drilled depth).  Zones remain open down dip.  On the other-hand strike direction has only been broadly confirmed but it is beginning to resolve into a WNW rather than NW strike.  Further work is required because:

1. Access to drill the central part of the main lode was restricted as it is the site of a small forest (Figure 2) and permission was not granted by the local community to drill within its confines. Investigation of mineralisation in this area will require deeper drilling, later, as it is beyond the capability of the contracted RC rig. 
   
2. Mineralisation is abruptly interrupted on the section line comprised of holes MTRC007, 008, 18 and 009.   Hole MTRC009 intersected a vein zone grading 2m @ 4.8g/t within 19m @ 1.3g/t from 59m and on-strike from mineralisation intersected in hole MTRC006 to the south (2m @ 4.6g/t from 55m; within 8m @ 1.3g/t from 51m) but only weak anomalism was intersected up dip by MTRC0018 and MTRC008. Based on a feature visible in ground magnetics, it is possible that a post mineralisation fault striking NNW, displaces the Main lode with an with apparent dextral throw of 50m.  This interpretation fits with a WNW strike.
   
3. As this was a first pass program and the exact strike of mineralisation was unknown at the time of planning- being modelled as between WNW to NW, several holes appear to have collared in the footwall of the Main lode and did not intersect the expected Main lode near surface.  These holes are MTRC003, 7, 10, 13 and 19 and the lack of mineralisation in those holes up dip from mineralisation strongly suggest that strike is closer to WNW than to NW (Figure 2).

Variation in the grades and thickness intersected also suggest that there is a second structural orientation that influences the mineralisation at Morley.   This second structural control may be an upshot of vein sets having an orientation which is oblique to the orientation of the host shear zone, a common feature of this style of mineralisation but we also believe, based on the overall architecture of all data, that mineralisation is developed preferentially within the WNW structures at their intersection with either ENE or NNE structures that are also evident in ground magnetic images.  Evidence for a second significant structural control is:

1. At the known north end of Morley main lode, it thickens and high-grade vein densities increase (Figure 3) where it is inferred to be intersected by an ENE trending shear zone of weaker mineralisation that was drilled over 400m of strike going west and which returned a peak value of 14m @ 1.1g/ (Figure 4).
2. All three structural orientations align with the overall shape of a gold in saprolite geochemical anomaly that overlies the Prospect (Figure 4), suggesting all three alignments may be mineralised.  With lobes and high values extending along WNW, ENE and NNE orientations.  This data was derived from a Newmont 2008, 50m x 50m auger program down to 10 m depth that covered an area of 1,000 x 850m and was conducted after air-core scout drilling had located the prospect.
3. All three structural orientations align with anomalous gold values returned by regional reconnaissance saprolite sampling auger data which was conducted on lines spaced 400-800m apart and samples collected every 100m (Figure 6).
4. Several fine scale structures visible in ground magnetics especially 1VD, 2VD and tilt filtered images coincide with all three orientations and higher grades in drilling can be tentatively associated with the intersection of the WNW striking lodes with both ENE and NNE trending structures.

The above brings the possibility of repeats of WNW oriented mineralisation along ENE or NNE directions in effect forming a large-stacked lode system.  The orientation of Historic scout drilling outside of the main area of drilling at Morley has poorly tested this concept with scout drill lines oriented subparallel to the WNW strike of mineralisation and lines alternating between down dip and across dip directions.  Better oriented north south holes are confined to the norther margins of the prospect.  Potential is illustrated in Figure 5  

Next steps at Morley

Given the evidence for a second structural control on mineralisation, we have temporarily paused our drill program to undertake deep trenching and pitting to gather structural data and map dominant vein orientations within the shear zones.  Once this is done drill direction/s which is currently on NE-SW lines drilling to SW can be optimised to intersect vein sets within the shear zones to give representative grades and investigate potentially higher-grade plunging intersection shoots. 

It is expected that trenching will commence early Q1 2021 after a contract excavator completes its work at K4-K5.

Close spaced auger power auger drilling is being planned  to extend the Morley footprint in favourable directions.

Finally, options to contract a RAB/Aircore rig to drill the covered granite greenstone contact in the area where the “Morley Structure” intersects it, are being investigated.

Other Exploration

In Burkina

We have commenced trenching at K4-K5 to investigate areas where cover is thinner – in artisanal workings or where drilling shows mineralisation close to surface.   Purpose of the program is to collect structural and lithological data and examine mineralisation near surface as previous drilling has been wide spaced and we are not sure if dominant trends are NNE or NE striking.  This 2,000m program is expected to be completed by very early next year after which RC drilling will be commenced.

We are also in the advanced stages of planning closer spaced deep auger drilling at K4-K5 to define drill targets within the larger area of K4-K5 outside planned drill areas. The geochemical anomaly at K4-K5 is huge and extends over 7 x 6 km.   Part of that program will cover extensions of drilling by Arrow Minerals (ASX:AMD) announced early this year which shows the eastern contact of the regional granite which hosts Morley is prospective.   This program is expected to commence shortly.

In Guyana 

We have recently completed a small auger program at Epeius to investigate the strike extensions of good results produced by Troy Resources (ASX:TRY) just across the projects southern boundary.  Troy’s results include drill intersections of 10m @ 6g/t Au, 17m @2.2g/t Au and trench intersections of 13m @ 2.3g/t Au, 8m @ 2.3g/t Au & 11m @ 1.47g/t Au.  An announcement will be made shortly and a follow-up trench program is already underway with 600m linear metres excavated to date.   

On Behalf of the Board,
Tajiri Resources Corp.

Graham Keevil,
President & CEO

About Tajiri