A VISIT by White Cliff Minerals managing director Todd Hibberd to Aucu Gold Project in the Kyrgyz Republic has resulted in visible gold being identified in a quartz outcrop. The company has planned an additional drilling program to target the quartz veins.

Exposed quartz veins where visible gold has been panned from the outcrop (centre top) and from the quartz vein exposed in the road cutting (near people).

Gold was observed in an outcropping quartz vein and in the same vein in a drill track cutting 11 metres further down the hill. The same quartz vein also outcrops further down the hill.

The outcropping quartz veins occur with a wide alteration zone consisting of several veins and shear zones that appear to be the eastern continuation of the Eastern Gold Zone.

The quartz vein outcrops 127 metres along strike from the high grade zone of 8 metres at 55 grams/tonne (g/t) gold encountered in a 2015 drill hole. In addition the position of the outcropping veins is consistent with the new structural interpretation of shallowly plunging high-grade lodes interpreted to occur at the intersection of the major NNW trending vertical faults and the shallow northerly dipping bedding.

Based on the identification of visible gold at surface over a 45 metre strike zone, White Cliff has planned an additional 900 metres of reverse circulation drilling targeting the veins over 100 metres of strike and to 100 metres depth. Drill pads have been prepared and RC drilling was due to commence in September.

Meantime, two diamond drill rigs continue to drill the Eastern Gold Zone on a 100 metre by 50 metre drill centre basis.

Detailed field mapping conducted recently and during the field visit has confirmed that the company’s new structural interpretation of the deposit is consistent with observed geology and the remaining drill holes in this year’s drill program have been adjusted accordingly.

It appears that the background gold grade of the main NNW trending mineralised zone is between 2 g/t and 4 g/t gold but where NNW shear zones intersect with specific bedding units the plunging lodes can have grades ranging from 10 g/t to 60 g/t. Targeting the high-grade plunging shoots is essential to determining an accurate average grade of the ore zones as a whole.

As at early September 11 diamond holes for 1624 metres had been completed in the 2016 drill program.

The project is 350km west-southwest of the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek and covers 83sqkm.