Skip to main content

Great Panther announces drill results from the Urucum North Underground Project at Tucano Gold Mine

Published by , Editor
Global Mining Review,


Great Panther Mining Ltd, a growth-oriented precious metals producer focused on the Americas, has reported drill results for an additional 29 holes at the Urucum North (URN) underground project at the company's wholly owned Tucano Gold Mine in Brazil. URN is the most northern of a series of opencasts distributed along the 7 km-long belt that hosts Tucano.

Surface diamond drilling focused on a zone of multiple plunging high-grade lodes beneath the URN opencast where underground mine development studies are advancing. The resource conversion drill programme, which commenced in 2021, was completed in April 2022 and totalled 18 948 m in 48 drill holes.

Highlights

All intervals are estimated true mineralisation widths.

  • 21URNDD028: 2.5 m at 5.8 g/t gold (Au) from 342 m.
  • 21URNDD028: 3.8 m at 4.71 g/t Au from 409 m.
  • 21URNDD049: 3.9 m at 7.65 g/t Au from 114 m.
  • 21URNDD051 3 m at 4.65 g/t Au from 139 m.
  • 21URNDD053 3.7 m at 6.2 g/t Au from 432.2 m.

Great Panther Chair and Interim CEO, Alan Hair, commented: “The zones of deeper, higher-grade mineralization being delineated at Urucum North demonstrate the potential for additional production from these underground resources in parallel with opencast operations at Tucano. In addition to the Urucum North underground zone, exploration has identified several similar potential high-grade zones associated with other pits along the 7 km belt, which may also support underground production and warrant additional drilling. Drill results from the Urucum North underground will be incorporated into an updated underground resource estimate.”

Diamond drilling was primarily focused on the URN high-grade zone (HGZ1), which lies less than 100 m below the planned URN final pit shell. In addition to the HGZ1 lode, drilling also identified an additional four high-grade lodes, which are being incorporated into the mine plan for Tucano. These lodes are expected to allow access to ore during early stages of ramp development prior to reaching the HGZ1 zone. The URN gold resource comprises five parallel, tabular bodies with grades ranging from 2 to 121 g/t Au and true thicknesses that range from a minimum true mining width of 2 m to 7 m. The gold mineralisation is associated with pyrrhotite and hosted in banded iron formation and calc-silicate units. High-grade ore shoots plunge 20 – 30° to the north.

Drill samples are analysed for gold by fire assay at Great Panther's onsite laboratory, with all samples to be included in the resource model re-analysed at the certified SGS Laboratory in Belo Horizonte, where multi-element ICP analyses are also undertaken. The data is being modelled with updated mineralisation and lithology wireframes being prepared for an updated resource model to support underground mine development planning.

Engineering studies for underground development at URN are currently in progress. The drilling plan and mine planning focus is on near-term development and production largely above the -200 masl level and will result in access to the top of the main high-grade zone (HGZ1) as well as provide access for reserve drilling along deeper parts of the HGZ1 and sub-parallel lodes and further infill drilling on the deeper, sub-parallel, plunging high-grade zone.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/exploration-development/03062022/great-panther-announces-drill-results-from-the-urucum-north-underground-project-at-tucano-gold-mine/

You might also like

EMI

Electrification in Mining virtual conference

Join us on 16 April 2024 for Global Mining Review's first Electrification in Mining event is an interactive virtual conference, focusing on electrification as the future of sustainable mining and exploring the innovative approaches and technologies being developed to facilitate its implementation.

Register for FREE »

 
 
 

Embed article link: (copy the HTML code below):


 

This article has been tagged under the following:

Gold mining news South American mining news