At the beginning of August this year, Dr Kerim Sener, Managing Director of Ariana Resources, the gold exploration and development company focused on Turkey, stated that the company was planning focused exploration over certain areas within the Kiziltepe Prospect anticipating an increase in their resources.
Ariana Resources has now undertaken that exploration and has announced the results of the geophysical programme conducted on the Kiziltepe Gold Prospect. The geophysical programme was undertaken over a 2km2 area covering the main Kiziltepe vein field and included all of the veins contained by the existing resource estimate. The programme follows the successful trial, earlier in the year, of the geophysical method over the Arzu South vein. The programme has been successful in defining several new exploration targets and has identified a number of probable vein systems that are not exposed at surface.
Data was collected from nine northeast-southwest orientated Induced Polarisation (IP) / resistivity profiles, to coincide directly with existing geochemical data.
Several high-resistivity anomalies (potential vein systems) have been identified at depth or beneath cover. Also a large high-chargeability anomaly (potential disseminated sulphide mineralisation) has been identified in the southwest part of the prospect.
“The anomalies in the Arzu South to Arzu North area are interesting because they identify a steeply dipping structure (interpreted to represent the Arzu vein system) and a new moderately dipping structure beneath ignimbrite (fragmented volcanic rock) cover. Both steeply and moderately dipping anomalies show typical resistivities in the range of 300-700 Ohm.m. The moderately dipping feature is a high-priority drilling target as it may represent a different style of vein-type mineralisation controlled by stratigraphy,” the company said.
Ariana Resources have also collected geophysical data to aid in the design of a new drilling programme. Further interpretation of the geophysical data in parallel with geological and geochemical datasets will be undertaken prior to planning a new drilling programme.
The current drilling programme has been put on hold until this new interpretation is completed.
Dr. Kerim Sener, Managing Director, commented:
"The results of this geophysical programme, which was carried out following an earlier successful trial on the Arzu vein, have highlighted even further potential upside on the Kiziltepe prospect. Although their presence was long suspected, there is now clear physical evidence of likely buried vein systems at the prospect. The20km of veins we have identified at surface now appear to be part of a broader interlinked system of structures at depth.
"We are very excited by these results and are convinced that further exploration, in particular drilling, will yield further discoveries. We are entering a new phase of exploration at Kiziltepe and our scope for identifying further resources has increased substantially."
Ariana Resources shares have increased by 4 percent.