Tartaruga
Tartaruga Project- Amapa
The Tartaruga project is located in the State of Amapa in northern Brazil, 160 km north of Macapa along the main sealed highway leading to French Guyana. The project comprises a Mining Concession application DNPM 851.439/1980 covering 20 000 ha.
In 2008 Beadell completed a major diamond drilling program of over 4000 m in 38 drill holes targeting the main known mineralised zones at Mineiro, Mandiocal and Bananal which form a continuous mineralised trend over a strike length in excess of 2 km. The drilling defined a JORC inferred resource of 5.5 Mt @ 1.6 g/t gold for 279 000 ounces. A higher grade core of mineralisation at a 1.5 g/t lower cut off is estimated at 2.1 Mt @ 2.7g/t for 185 000 ounces. The mineralisation remains open in all directions with excellent potential to rapidly increase the resource with additional drilling.
The Tartaruga project is characterised by an open undulating lateritic landform with all the gold resources located on previously cleared grazing farmland.
All previous drilling on the project, totalling over 10 000 m, has been diamond drilling however there is a great opportunity to use more conventional aircore and RC drilling techniques to cost effectively explore and delineate additional resources at the project.
Options to develop the Tartaruga project are currently being considered with scoping engineering and optimisation studies indicating a robust open pit project at current gold prices. Optimal pit shells at the adjoining Mineiro and Mandiocal deposits are modelled to produce 2.1 Mt @ 1.9 g/t gold for 122 000 oz . Both open pit models bottom in high-grade mineralisation which remain open at depth. Potential to develop a complimentary underground operation at the base of the optimised pits is now being investigated.
Outside of the known resource areas the Tartaruga project has significant exploration upside with almost no drilling completed outside of the main Mineiro trend even though extensive alluvial and hardrock garimpeiro workings exist throughout the project area. Ongoing exploration at the project will aim to increase the resource base to over 500 000 oz of gold prior to a decision to develop the project.
Tartaruga plan showing location of gold desposits and open soil anomalies
Mineiro Shear Zone
The Mineiro Shear Zone encompasses all the current JORC inferred resources of Mineiro Zeta, Mandiocal and Bananal which form a continuous mineralised trend over approximately 2 km strike length open to the east and west. The gold mineralisation is hosted within a tabular shear 1 to 13 m wide, semi-conformable with a shallowly southwest-dipping quartzite.
The central Mandiocal deposit has been drilled to a nominal 80 m x 80 m spacing delineating a flat lying supergene layer and a high grade central core of primary mineralisation plunging shallowly to the south. A total JORC inferred resource for Mandiocal is estimated at 3.4 Mt @ 1.4 g/t for 155 000 ounces of gold at a 0.5 g/t lower cut off with a higher grade core of mineralisation in the supergene and main Mandiocal zones of 1.0 Mt @ 2.7 g/t for 87 000 ounces of gold using a 1.5 g/t lower cut off. The highest grade approximate true width results, including 0.4 m @ 68.7 g/t gold from 105.6m and 2.3 m @ 10.7 g/t gold from 99m, remain open at depth and form an excellent target for additional open pit or underground resources. Several narrow hanging wall structures hosted within felsic to intermediate volcanic rocks were intersected, however due to the limited number of drill hole pierce points they have not been included in the modelled resource. The surface projection of the hangingwall structures appears to have been the focus of shallow garimpeiro mining from the Mandiocal pit.
The Mineiro Zeta deposit adjoins the Mandiocal deposit and forms a continuous mineralised zone over 700 m of strike. The deposit has a JORC inferred resource of 1.3 Mt @ 2.0 g/t for 88 000 ounces of gold at a 0.5 g/t gold lower cut-off, with a high grade zone showing good continuity containing an inferred resource of 0.7 Mt @ 3.1 g/t for 72 000 ounces of gold. The Mineiro deposit has excellent open pitable potential with the mineralisation exposed at the surface by numerous shallow pits between 2 and 10 m deep.
The Miniero shear zone has excellent potential to host additional resources with recently completed wide spaced soil sampling indicating that the mineralisation extends over a 5 km strike and is open to the east and west with a highest result of 267 ppb gold. A spot high soil result of 408 ppb gold 100 m north of Miniero Zeta also remains untested by drilling.
Tartaruga 3D image looking at NW showing pit optimisation and resource outlines
Jucelino Shear Zone
A major new gold-anomalous corridor named the Jucelino Shear Zone has been identified by regional soil sampling on approximately 800 m by 100 m spacing, 2 km south of and parallel to the main Mineiro Shear Zone (Figure 11). Anomalous soil results have been recorded over 6 km length with the highest result of 246 ppb gold remaining open to the west. A result of 188 ppb gold was recorded 1.7 km east and along strike of the Jucelino pit, opening up a large area with potential for mineralisation.
The Jucelino trend is characterised by an undulating terrain with abundant, but generally shallow cover sequences of alluvium and laterite. Beadell completed two diamond holes beneath the Jucelino pit in 2008; these holes intersected a series of steeply dipping and deformed felsic to gabbroic rocks with significant zones of alteration, sulphidation and anomalous gold up to 1.3 g/t gold.