Sisorta
$2 Million Raising: Underwritten Placement and Share Purchase PlanLink to a recent presentation discussing Sisorta
Link to a recent audio broadcast discussing Sisorta
(Chesser earning up to 70%, Eurasian 100%)
The Company announced on the 27th of August 2007 that it had entered into an option agreement with Eurasian Minerals Ltd (TSX-V:EMX) to earn up to a 70% interest in its Sisorta Property in North-Central Turkey.
The Sisorta property is a volcanic-hosted high sulphidation epithermal project, in which pre-2007 drilling had demonstrated the existence of a significant body of near-surface oxide gold mineralisation with surface chip-channel sample fire assay grades of up to 14 grams per tonne gold reported by Eurasian Minerals. The project has a large footprint of outcropping mineralisation and anomalous soil geochemistry, only a small portion of which has been drilled.
Mineralisation on the Sisorta project is associated with a 2500m by 800m northwest-trending topographic high (figure 1). The 22 drillholes carried out prior to 2007 demonstrated the clear existence of a large zone of high grade oxide gold mineralisation which remained open to the northwest and southeast. Significant pre-2007 drill results to date from the project included:
- 30.4 metres at 3.83 grams per tonne gold from drillhole Sis-5 starting at surface, including 22.0 metres at 5.00 grams per tonne gold
- 60.5 metres at 1.49 grams per tonne gold from drillhole ES-9 starting at a depth of 1.3 metres, including 20.0 metres at 3.28 grams per tonne gold
- 27.9 metres at 3.00 grams per tonne gold from drillhole ES-3 starting from surface, including 20.8 metres at 3.79 grams per tonne gold
- 52.4 metres at 1.58 grams per tonne gold from drillhole Sis-2 starting from surface, including 19.5 metres at 2.64 grams per tonne gold
The property was discovered and explored by Maden Tetkik ve Arama ("MTA"), Turkey's General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration, between 1995 and 1998. The property was subsequently acquired by Eurasian Minerals as part of a competitive auction process concluded in January, 2004.
Significant new drill results from the September 2007 drill program (figure 2) included:
- 35.2 metres at 3.60 grams per tonne gold from drillhole Sis17 starting at a depth of 113.3 metres, including 10.1 metres at 6.04 grams per tonne gold
- 34.7 metres at 1.62 grams per tonne gold from drillhole Sis13 starting at surface,
- 37.7 metres at 0.66 grams per tonne gold from drillhole Sis16 starting at surface,
- 20.8 metres at 0.6 grams per tonne gold and 0.38 percent copper from drillhole Sis15 starting at a depth of 30.45 metres
Drillholes Sis16 and Sis17 were designed to test the topographically high silica cap zone to the west of the known zone of mineralisation, where previous soil and chip-channel sampling had returned encouraging gold results. The positive results in those holes, combined with the broad extent of surface soil and rock gold anomalies in this area, showed that there was significant potential to extend the intersected mineralisation to the northwest and southeast. High grade gold mineralisation in hole Sis17 is hosted in siliceous breccia with a silica-hematite matrix. Clasts and matrix within the breccia do not appear to show a preferred orientation which could be used to infer the geometry of the zone.
Drillhole Sis13 tested the northwest extent of the existing high grade zone, while drillholes Sis14 and Sis15 were stepouts to the west from the outcropping high grade zone.
The Company commenced its 2008 drill program on the Sisorta project during the third quarter of the 2008 financial year (figures 3, 4). The planned 2008 program comprised a minimum of 8000 metres of diamond drilling and approximately 62 kilometres of dipole-dipole IP.
By the end of the financial year, nine holes were completed for a total of 1314.9 metres, and assays were received for the first five holes (figure 5). A third drill rig arrived at the project near the end of the quarter resulting in an acceleration of core production. The fourth drill rig arrived during the September quarter. Significant new drill results received by year-end are shown in Table 1.
Additional surface rockchip sampling was carried out during the quarter in areas newly exposed by road construction. Notable results were obtained from a zone approximately 1.3 kilometres to the northwest of the main area of drilling, where three 2 to 3 metre chip channel samples from a zone of siliceous breccia with a haematitic matrix produced assay results between 1.41 and 1.72 grams per tonne Au. The results illustrate the broader potential of the project which has not yet been systematically tested. Drilling of a number of the outlying target zones on the project is scheduled for later in 2008.
Other significant activities during the financial year included completion of all drill roads, initiation of metallurgical pit excavations, and commencement of the property-scale Induced Polarization and Ground Magnetic Survey. Approximately 70% of the survey lines had been completed by the end of the year, with the remainder to be completed soon thereafter.
The drill results indicate that mineralisation continues in between the East and West Zones that have received most drilling to date, but that the depth of oxidation is shallower in those intervening zones. A number of strong copper intercepts reinforce the copper potential of the project in addition to its gold potential. Results from the IP survey will help in targeting deeper holes aimed at pursuing porphyry copper-gold targets within the project area.