Emmaland Ghana Limited and CARDERO Resources Corporation of Canada have announced the successful completion of Phase One exploration at the Sheini Hills Iron Project in the Northern Region.
A statement signed by Mr. Michael Hunter, Chief Executive Officer and President of CARDERO to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, on Tuesday said the phase one program targeted two main types of potential iron ore, ironstone ridges and surface ferricretes, both being hematite-dominated with negligible magnetite content have yielded impressive results.
Statistics available to GNA show that ironstone ridges had been tested with 9,192.4m meters of diamond drilling with a total of 67 diamond drill holes completed with results received for the first 30 drill holes.
In Phase One, ironstone ridges were drilled over a strike length of nine kilometres north-south and along section lines averaging approximately 600 metres east-west with outcropping ironstones over an additional nine kilometres of strike length, which have been targeted for future drill-testing.
The Ironstone ridges are composed of two potential ore-types - higher grade thinly banded ironstones considered to be primary Rapitan-type ironstones although an epigenetic origin cannot be entirely ruled out.
Associated diamictites, sediments of probable glacial origin, are thought to be epigenetic and partially replaced by haematite.
Surface Ferricrete/Detrital Deposits were tested with 1,923 metres of reverse circulation drilling.
Drill testing of surface ferricretes covered a mapped surface area of 20 square kilometres.
The ferricrete thickness ranges from one meter to 29 metres in thickness with an average ferricrete thickness of 9.2 metres from surface.
Ferricrete mapping indicates that an additional area of 16 square kilometres can be targeted for future drill testing.
Some deposits are loose gravels while others are naturally cemented (hematite conglomerate) and both types are found peripheral to the Sheini Hills ironstone ridges.
At Sheini, the ferricrete tends to be composed primarily of the higher-grade, banded-type ironstone, rather than the lower-grade diamictite, which is easily broken down by weathering processes.
According to the statement, work programme at Sheini Hills project site was supervised by Mr. Christopher White (Cardero Resource Corp.) and Dr. Karel Maly (Aurum Exploration Limited), who together were responsible for all aspects of the work, including the quality control/quality assurance program.
On-site personnel at the project rigorously collect and track samples which are then security sealed and shipped to ALS Laboratories, Kumasi, Ghana, for sample preparation, and onward transmission to OMAC Laboratories (an ALS Group company), Ireland, for analysis.
The statement explained that analytical accuracy and precision were monitored by the analysis of reagent blanks, reference material and replicate samples. Quality control was further assured by the use of international and in-house standards.
Blind certified reference material was inserted at regular intervals into the sample sequence in order to independently assess analytical accuracy.