Japan Gold Corp has expanded its epithermal gold exploration portfolio in Japan with the addition of two new projects in the highly prospective Southern Kyushu Epithermal Gold Province. The two projects comprising nine applications for a total of 3028 hectares have been accepted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI).
The Tobaru and Ohra-Takamine projects cover alteration zones and historic gold-silver mines in a prospective and relatively underexplored part of the province.
The company now holds priority over these areas and is authorised to commence surface exploration on these projects. With the addition of these new projects, the company’s portfolio now comprises 69,505 hectares over 17 separate projects on the three main islands of Japan.
Tobaru and Ohra-Takamine are within the highly gold endowed Hokusatsu-Kushikino mining district, in the northern part of the Southern Kyushu gold province. In excess of 10 million ounces of gold has been produced from high-grade epithermal deposits of the district.
Notable producers within the district include the Hishikari mine with 7.1 million ounces produced to date at average grades of 30-40 g/t; Kushikino mine, 1.8 million ounces at 6.7 g/t; Yamagano mine, 910,000 ounces at 17.4 g/t; and the Ohkuchi mine with 714,000 ounces at 13.6 g/t.
Tobaru is in the northern-most part of the Hokusatsu-Kushikino district and comprises four applications for a total of 1347 hectares. Significant gold producers nearby include the Fuke and Ohkuchi mines located respectively 1.5km and 4km west and south of the project
No historic production is recorded at Tobaru but the project applications enclose a large area of alteration hosted in andesite-rhyolite volcanics.
Ohra-Takamine comprises five application blocks for a total of 1681 hectares over the historic Takamine-Urushi, Takamine and Ohra mines. The project is 7.5km south of the historic Yamagano mine.
Like all of the major gold mines in the Hokusatsu-Kushikino district, Ohra-Takamine straddles the margin of a gravity-high feature inferred to indicate upward doming of the basement which produced suitable fracture pathways for hydrothermal fluid flow.
Initially discovered in 1885 and mined periodically to 1943 the Ohra mine produced in the order of 27,000 ounces of gold at grades reported between 3.5 and 20 g/t. The Takamine and Takamine-Urushi mines were discovered in latter part of the 19th century and mined periodically up to 1943.
Takamine mine produced 9654 tonnes of ore with average grades of 5.1 g/t gold and 28.3 g/t silver. Takamine-Urushi mine was estimated to have produced 13,000 ounces of gold between 1896 and 1916.
Due to the high prospectivity of the district and the level of modern exploration completed on these prospects, Japan Gold believes these areas are worthy of more detailed exploration. The company will seek to define the limits of the alteration around these vein systems by building on the existing data with detailed surface mapping, geochemical-sampling and geophysics to target new zones and extensions to known veins for scout drill testing.
Japan Gold’s chairman and CEO John Proust said, “We are pleased to acquire these new exploration projects in this world-class gold-rich district of Japan. These new projects add significantly to our portfolio of high-quality exploration projects in productive and under-explored gold districts of Japan.”
Japan Gold