The Company is currently carrying out its sixth exploration season after starting work in 2004.
By the end of the 2009 season a total of 218 diamond drill holes (41 underground) were completed for a new total of 46,400.85 metres drilled.
Underground development in the form of an adit, cross-cuts and drifts to access the ore body at depth and to establish drill chambers for drill evaluation of the C5300 ore body have been conducted since 2006, with 1055 metres completed.
Map showing the underground work and the mineralised body at the same level
In addition, a total of 8,505 metres of prospecting trenches were excavated and 57.62 kilometres of access roads to the prospecting areas were constructed.
Prospecting to date has focused mainly within an area of some six kilometres of strike length in the centre of the licence area, where the mineralisation is hosted in zones of up to 25 metres wide. Eleven project areas have been trenched and drill tested to a depth of between 80 metres and 520 metres. At the end of the 2008 exploration season, the drilling had delineated a JORC compliant mineral resource (indicated and inferred) of 4.009 Moz Au at an average grade of 4.14 g/t gold. The most significant and developed project is the C5300 Project where underground development in the form of an adit, drifts and drill chambers in the Contact Zone has allowed the resource to be drill tested to a depth of 520 metres down dip with positive results. Drilling of 9185.70 metres over 41 drill holes from three underground drill chambers has been carried out. Surface drilling, bulldozer cut sampling and trenching also continued throughout the 2009 field season. An aggressive exploration programme will continue to expand and upgrade resources in the already established projects, in addition to identifying additional resources in new and less developed project areas within the licence area. Surface drilling would focus on the T0700 project area to add and upgrade resource as it has got very good potential to become an open pit target. Underground driling will be carried out from Drill chamber-5 which will connect the C5300 and C4600 ore bodies. In addition, drilling from Drill chamber-4 will add resource by extending the C5300 ore body back towards north. Sub-surface drilling will be carried out on a selected potential underground mining block to upgrade the resource to measure capacity.
Exploration History
Chaarat was prospected by the Soviet exploration teams for antimony and gold during the late 1980’s. In 1996 Apex Asia applied for a license which covered part of the Sandalash License Area including the Chaarat Project. Apex explored the property for gold during 1997-8. Following a Joint venture agreement with Newmont work concentrated on regional geochemical work and IP geophysical work. Seven drill holes were also drilled. Due to a corporate strategic decision, Newmont left Kyrgyzstan and terminated its JV with Apex.
Following a thorough data review, Chaarat Zaav made the decision to explore the property and applied for an exploration licence, which was issued on 10th December 2002.
Recent Exploration
The Company’s exploration programme commenced with regional exploration in 2004 and included mapping and trenching of the known mineralised zones in the central part of the licence area. In addition, some of the regional gold occurrences and areas of gold geochemical soil anomalies were mapped.
Following this work the Company applied to the Government to enlarge the license area so as to include the three identified prospects; Chaarat, Kashkasu and Minteke.
The Chaarat Project is currently confined to approximately ten kilometres along strike at the centre of the Sandalash License Area. Access to the Northern part of the Project is restricted by the mountainous terrain, but as road development advances additional targets are being identified which will be drilled.
During the 2008 exploration season the company focused on increasing the resource in seven of the mineralised project areas where resources had been delineated at the end of the 2007 drilling campaign. In addition, three new project areas, namely, M4400; M5000 and M6000 (Karator) were test drilled.
The underground development of an adit through the Contact Zone which commenced in 2007, was completed during early 2008. It Intersected 20 metres of mineralised zone with 6 g/t Au content. The encouraging results of the adit motivated further underground development. Drifting over 685 metres parallel to the strike of the mineralised zone will be completed by the end of the 2009 season. Underground drilling of 9,185.70 metres (41 drill holes) from three drill chambers has produced excellent results. The underground drilling established the continuation of the mineralised zone for a total of 520m down dip from the surface. Completion of drilling from Drill chamber-5 would connect the C5300 and C4600 mineralised projects.
Behre Dolbear completed an update to their Scoping Study in December 2008 and a Pre-Feasibility Study by SRK Johannesburg is in progress and due to be completed in Q3 2010.
JORC compliant, Indicated and Inferred mineral resources have been defined and calculated by SRK at the end of 2009 for the main project areas. A cut-off grade of 2 g/t was used for these evaluations.
The Main Zone is one of the three parallel mineralised structures of Chaarat. Main zone mineralisation strikes NE – SW with steep dip of 70º – 80º due North West. System of anastomising and braided oblique slip faults, conjugate structures and riedal shear intersections host mineralisation in Main Zone. The Main Zone structure is developed within the siltstones of Chaarat Formation on the lower slopes of Sandalash river valley and include several discrete mineralised bodies.
Table 1: Main zone resource figures.The Main Zone currently comprises seven Projects. The number identifies the location of the Project along the axis of the Chaarat Project as can be seen in the Drawing.
Map of Mineralisation Projects of the Main Zone.
M2400 Project Area
A mineral resource of 496,000 oz at a grade of 4.08 g/t Au was delineated at the end of the 2009 drilling campaign over a strike length of 720 metres and to a depth of 270 metres from the surface. The mineralised lodes are between two and twelve metres wide (average five metres wide) and are hosted in sericitised and sheared siltstones with up to 10 to 15% pyrite, stibnite, tetrahedrite and arsenopyrite. Drilling has indicated that the mineralisation is open along strike and down dip.
Figure 4: M2400, Surface Plan and Typical Drill Section.
Table 2: M2400, Significant Drill Hole Intersections.
A mineral resource of 730,000 oz at a grade of 4.24 g/t Au was delineated at the end of the 2009 drilling campaign over a strike length of 480 metres and to a depth of 480 metres from the surface. The mineralisation occurs within zones between two and thirty metres wide (average width 4.20 metres) and, like M2400, is hosted in steeply dipping lodes of sericitised and sheared siltstones and greywackes with up to 10 to 15% pyrite, stibnite, tetrahedrite and arsenopyrite. Drilling has indicated that the mineralisation is open along strike to the north and down dip.
Figure 5: M3000, Surface Plan and Typical Drill Section.
Table 3: M3000, Significant Drill Hole Interceptions.
A mineral resource of 134,000 oz at a grade of 4.17 g/t Au was delineated at the end of the 2009 drilling campaign over a strike length of 300 metres and to a depth of 250 metres from the surface. The mineralisation occurs within zones between two and twelve metres wide (average width 4.18 metres). As in other Main Zone project areas, the mineralisation is hosted in steeply dipping lodes of sericitised and sheared siltstones and greywackes with up to 10 to 15% pyrite, stibnite, tetrahedrite and arsenopyrite. Drilling has indicated that the mineralisation is open along strike to the north and down dip.
Table-4 : M3400, Significant Drill hole intersections.
A mineral resource of 272,000 oz at a grade of 3.79 g/t Au was delineated at the end of the 2009 drilling campaign over a strike length of 540 metres and to a depth of 314 metres from the surface. The mineralisation is between two and fourteen metres wide (average width 3.56 metres). As in other Main Zone project areas, the mineralisation is hosted in steeply dipping lodes of sericitised and sheared siltstones and greywackes with up to 10 to 15% pyrite, stibnite, tetrahedrite and arsenopyrite. Drilling has indicated that the mineralisation is open along strike to the north and down dip.
Table-5 : M3900, Significant Drill hole intersections.
A mineral resource of 129,000oz at a grade of 4.18 g/t Au was delineated at the end of the 2009 drilling campaign. North-east of C5300 along the Shir Canyon, the Contact Zone is displaced 800 metres to the north along a younger fault. The mineralisation continues across the fault as a shallow dipping structure which was trenched in 2004.
New surface cuts have exposed a steeply dipping, Ag rich zone. This zone is defined by DC 678 as 3.5 metres (true thickness) with 3.66 g/t Au, 456 g/t Ag and 1.22%Sb; and DC 670 located 310 metres to the south-west where the zone is five metres thick (true thickness) with 5 g/t Au and 31 g/t Ag. Surface cuts done during the 2007 season demonstrated the continuation of mineralisation in low angle (300) veins for additional strike of 200 metres to the north-east. Gold grades in the low angle veins are very high over narrow widths. There were fourteen drill holes (a total of 1,805 metres) drilled in this area by the end of 2009.
Figure 7: M6000 Surface Plan and Typical Drill Section.
The following table shows the significant mineralised intersections.
Table-6 : M6000, Significant Drill hole intersections.
The Contact Zone occurs to the north-west of the Main Zone on a shear zone separating the Chaarat and Tulkubash formations. Mineralisation extending over more than one kilometre strike length was identified in 2004 and 2005. Subsequently more detailed mapping, trenching and drilling has demonstrated three ore bodies with a cumulative strike length of more than 1500 metres. These are, from north to south, the C5300, C4600 and C4000 ore bodies. Resources in these individual bodies at the end of the 2008 drilling program and the total of all three bodies are shown in Table 7.
Table7: Resources in the Contact Zone.
The following points are worth noting:
- The Mineralised zone is rather wide (20.00 metres at adit level) and dips at 55-600 to the north-west.
- The Contact Zone hosts more than 1.40 MOZ Au (JORC compliant, Indicated and Inferred categories)
- Mineralisation occurs in sericitised and sheared siltstones with 10-15% pyrite, stibnite, tetrahedrite and arsenopyrite.
- The Zone is open at depth. The deepest drill hole in C5300 encountered ore at depth at an elevation of 1,880 metres, while most ore outcrops are located above 2,750 metres with a vertical difference of about 850 metres or more than 520 metres down the dip.
- Only 1.2 km of the more than 10km long Contact fault zone have been intensively explored.
Exploration in 2009 included additional deep drilling in C5300 from the underground drill chambers to probe the strike and dip extension of mineralisation and two cross-cuts to expose the mineralised zone for GEOTECH studies and physical examination, With the help of underground drilling and developments, continuity of mineralisation has been established at the Adit level (2324m) over 6 Sections (4880, 4960, 5040, 5120, 5200 and 5280). Five drill holes were drilled during 2009 along Section 4880 which is the southern most section towards C4600. All the five drill holes intersected very good mineralisation thereby indicating strong possibility of C5300 mineralised body connecting with that of C4600. The Longitudinal Projection of the dip planes of the C5300 and C4600 mineralised bodies presented below clarifies the point.
As can be seen from the Longitudinal projection (Fig-9), completion of drilling along three sections (Sections 4800, 4720 and 4640) from Drill chamber-5 will connect the C5300 mineralised body with that of C4600.
Table-8: Significant Drill Hole Intersections, C5300.
In C4600 area, located 150 meters due south of C5300, along the Contact Zone, the following are the significant drill hole intercepts:
Table 9: C4600, Significant drill hole intersections.
Contact Zone Project C4000 is located a few hundred metres to the south of C4600 and is the southern most ore body identified, along the Contact zone, although the surface cut results indicate mineralisation extends further south along the Contact Zone.
The following drill hole results have been received from this zone:
Table 10: C4000, Significant drill hole intersections.
The Tulkubash Zone is hosted in silicified quartzites, and mineralised zones exhibit pervasive silicification, brecciation and some argillic alteration, together with elevated contents of sulfides up to 10-15 volume %. The Tulkubash Zone strikes parallel to the Contact and Main Zones and extends from the T0700 area in the south to the north-east into the Karator and Ishakuldy areas.
To define other mineralised zones in the Tulkubash, soil samples were taken on all crest lines descending from the Chaarat peak towards the Sandalash River. The Tulkubash soil sampling has generated very extensive soil anomalies over 1ppm Au, and reaching up to 73 g/t in one sample. Of the total of 897 samples taken, 467 assayed above 0.1 g/t Au and 115 samples over 1 g/t Au.
The relatively short strike length called the T0700 Project is the only section of the Tulkubash zone explored by drilling as yet. Resource for Tulkubash Zone calculated by SRK at the end of 2009, to include a 336,000 ounce JORC compliant, Inferred resource at an average grade of 4.18 g/t over a strike length of 500 metres. Most of the resource associated with this strike has been defined to a shallow depth of 250 metres below surface and seem to be open on strike and down dip
Five drill holes were drilled in the T0700 Project area during 2009. In addition, two old Soviet Adits were mapped and sampled. The interpretation of the results thus far suggests a mineralisation configuration which may be suitable for open cut mining.
Two distinct trends of mineralisation are observed in T0700 Project area (i) the NE-SW trending Main zone structure seems to continue into the T0700 and (ii) NW-SE trending, steep dipping intensely silicified cross-structures. The intersection of the two structures might have provided loci for richer and thicker mineralisation. The mapping and sampling of the old Soviet Adit (Adit-2) along with the drill results of CCH09T0793bis2 and 2007 drill hole CCH0793bis provides a strong clue regarding robust mineralisation along the main zone trend. Similarly, 2006 and 2007 drill holes CCH07146, CCH0692, CCH0662bis, CCH0796 and CCH0665, all drilled at an azimuth of 255, intersecting mineralisation, strongly support mineralisation along NW-SE cross-structures. Strong mineralisation along two mutually perpendicular structures both showing near surface mineralisation provides a strong possibility for an open pit target.
The significant drill hole results are summarised as follows:
Table 11: T0700, Significant Drill Hole Intersections.
The Chaarat Project includes a few additional locations along its 10 km of strike that call for further exploration based on soil anomalies, new surface cuts and rock chip sampling.
Ishakuldy
Following encouraging results in 2006, additional soil samples were taken over the north end of Karator peak, where the Contact Zone separates the Tulkubash conglomerates from the Chaarat siltstones. Some of the 2006 soil anomalies have been trenched, exposing high grade mineralisation.
Gold soil anomalies in this area extend over 2,400 metres along strike and are up to 600 metres wide. The anomalies are located around a large dioritic intrusive, and range from 0.1ppm, up to 6.2ppm. Ore grade samples in trenches (one metre at 15 g/t) were also intersected in 2006.
Two access roads leading towards the targets in the Ishakuldy area were constructed in such a manner as to expose mineralised zones and allow fresh rock sampling. On the basis of mineralization exhibited by the trenches and dozer cuts, three areas have been identified for further work and drilling.
Ishakuldy area was mapped in detail during 2008 and 2009. The area reveals a fascinating geological set up comprising of Karator sandstones and siltstones, Chaarat Sandstone and silt stones and carbonate rocks, Tulkubash Quartzite and conglomerate and most importantly intrusive Diorite. The area has been traversed by several thrusts and strike slip faults, some of which are mineralised.
Yura Zone
The Yura Zone was discovered in 2004 on the Eastern side of Shir Canyon. The mineralisation is associated with a fault dipping 500 to the northwest, essentially parallel to the Contact Zone. This Zone has now been exposed in five trenches (average grades Au 2.34g/t; Ag 35g/t and Sb 4.85%) over 130 metres.