Zimbabwe has long been a significant gold producer, primarily from Greenstone Belt quartz ‘reef’ deposits. The largest current producer is Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc from its Blanket Gold Mine, which currently operates at a depth of about 750m below surface on multiple ore shoots and produced over 80,000 ounces of gold in 2022. To date, in excess of 1 million ounces of gold have been produced from the property.
The Bulawayo Gold Project comprises EPO 1783 and EPO 1784 and covers a large 1,300km2 licence area near Bulawayo with extensive Greenstone Belt rock formations that are host to many small to mid-size quartz reef gold mines and deposits in Zimbabwe.
No systematic exploration has been carried out for more than 25 years due to the previously unfavourable investment climate in Zimbabwe. Prospective areas with thin sand/alluvial/Karoo basalt cover have never been explored and grab sampling on the property reports assays ranging from 3.9-16g/t Au, confirming the prospectivity of this ground.
In 2022 an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey was flown at 100m line spacing over a 1,108km2 area with the aim of mapping blind extensions of prospective greenstone belt lithology beneath shallow alluvial and Karoo sandstone cover, whilst gaining an understanding of the structural controls to mineralisation. The survey delineated several high priority targets with resemblance to the characteristics of the many known gold mines and deposits in the area, and was followed up by a detailed ground magnetic survey at the Queen’s Mine west area.
A number of regional shears and splays that have hosted former producing gold mines, such as the historic Queen’s Group mines were highlighted by the survey, and these can be seen extending under cover. Further prospectivity is associated with granite intrusive bodies that were detected by the survey, which are the likely source for mineralised fluids and could be associated with mineralisation. In addition, the survey highlighted a suite of ultramafic rocks that could potentially host nickel deposits.
Further work concentrated on defining drill ready targets in priority areas across the licence, with a focus on prospective areas marginal to the Queen’s Mine Area, where historical gold production >44,000 ounces was reported up to 1984. Over 9,500 soil samples were collected during systematic soil sampling, with a total of 2,455 samples sent for laboratory analysis. Several areas were defined for follow-up work, including numerous structural gold targets around the Queen’s Mine Area, gold and nickel targets at Bembezi and gold and base metal targets identified at Master Cecil, where Anglo American had previously identified extensive strike length of banded iron formations.
At the Queen’s Mine area, a 5km2 area with anomalous gold-in-soil values up to 680ppb was highlighted extending over several structures delineated by the aeromagnetic survey to the southeast of the mine, with further anomalous zones indicated along-strike, within consistent and prospective greenstone lithology, some of which extend beneath cover rocks and have received very little work to date.
New targets represent extensions of known gold-bearing structures that typically host both commercial and small-scale gold mining operations in the Queen’s Mine region, and pXRF analyses indicate coincident anomalies of associated elements.
