AIM-listed Caledonia Mining has announced the first results from its recent exploration programme at Motapa, an exploration project acquired in November 2022, located directly adjacent to the Company's Bilboes Gold Project in southern Zimbabwe.
At Motapa, the combination of diamond drilling (DD) and reverse circulation drilling (RC), designed to test the continuation of sulphide zones of mineralisation below the historic oxide open pits, have returned highly encouraging results. In addition, shallower drilling in new target areas has returned encouraging results both in shallower oxide, and deeper sulphide zones.
The program to date has achieved the initial objectives and included 12,724m of trenching, 4,143m of DD and 5,433m of RC. The drill program featured generally wide-spaced holes at several prospects on the Motapa lease area and highlighted the presence of widespread gold mineralization over a combined strike length of more than 9km. Results included significant high grade gold mineralization in numerous areas (e.g. in particular the Jupiter, Pluvious and Mpudzi areas) which will now be the focus for follow up drilling with a view to defining an open pit mineral resource. Drilling highlights to date include:
- Hole JPRC01 - 12.00m* at 6.36g/t from 81m downhole, RC
- Hole JPRC05 - 13.00m at 5.17g/t from 88m downhole, RC
- Hole PLVRC06 - 7.00m at 3.27g/t from 64m downhole, RC
- Hole MPZRC02 - 4.00m at 10.95g/t from 12m downhole, RC
- Hole JDD08 - 14.00m at 3.20g/t from 63m downhole, DD
- Hole PLVDD01 - 8.00m at 4.00g/t from 74m downhole, DD
Chief Executive Officer, Mark Learmonth, said:
"The results from the sampling at Motapa have delivered encouraging results in terms of strike width, length and grade. The drill program featured generally wide-spaced holes at several prospects on the Motapa lease area and highlighted the presence of widespread gold mineralization over a combined strike length of more than 9 km. Motapa sits adjacent to Bilboes, which is where the Company plans to develop a major new high grade open pit gold mine. These initial results confirm that Motapa will continue to form a key role in the Company's growth strategy."