The Marrancos Gold Project is 100% owned by Mineda – Minas de Portugal, is located in northwest Portugal, in the Braga District, approximately 20 km north of the city of Braga.
The exploration licence covered a total area of 39 sqkm, divided in two polygons with 31 sqkm and 8 sqkm, now progressed into a Trial Mining Application (with pending approval)
Most exploration works were performed by Medgold Resources Corp. under a JV Agreement with Lusorecursos from June 2016 to January 2017, later drilling was conducted by Lusorecursos.
Key prospect identified: MARRANCOS – Portela das Cabras
Mapping has identified a mineralized 600m shear corridor and a second parallel structure with mineralization potential
Gold mineralization associated with cross-cutting tension veins (grades up to 40 g/t Au)
Channel chip sampling yielded best intervals of 12.55 m @3.28g/t including 5.40 m @ 6.88 g/t Au and 12.98 m @ 2.71 g/t Au
GEOLOGY
Project is located between geotectonic units of the Galiccia-Tras-os-Montes Zone and Central Iberian Zone. Regionally deformed by two late Variscan brittle-ductile structures.
Principal control on regional mineralization is NE-trending Portela das Cabras-Carbalinho shear.
Gold mineralization typically hosted within white quartz veins, commonly occupying intra-shear tension gashes, with a strong association with arsenopyrite.
Veins developed within dilatational zones associated with strike slip faulting. Shears developed within metasediments. Intra-shear veins are orientated perpendicular to main shear direction.
Majority of gold mineralization is hosted within the veins with minor disseminations into the deformed host rock.
EXPLORATION
The Marrancos Project covers several targets controlled and distributed along a northeast-trending macro shear structure.
Priority target is the Marrancos – Portela das Cabras prospect, where mineralization is controlled by a 15 m wide, northeast-trending structure which crops out and is mineralized over a strike length of at least 600 m.
Historical trenching across this structure by the Portuguese geological survey, Serviço de Fomento Mineiro (SFM), identified narrow zones of high-grade mineralization from surface sampling: e.g. 1.00 m at 97.5 g/t Au.
SFM later completed 642 m of drilling in 8 diamond drill holes, initially drilling towards the southeast to test the northeast-trending shear corridor.
The drilling yielded a best result of 5.43 m @ 4.31 g/t Au and likely intersected the shear-orthogonal quartz veins at an oblique angle.
A series of contiguous chip-channel samples, testing a set of quartz lenses over an exposed width of approximately 50 m in Cova dos Mouros Pit, has returned best intercepts of 12.55 m at 3.28 g/t Au (including 5.40 m at 6.88 g/t Au), and 12.98 m at 2.71 g/t Au.
The channel sampling is sub-parallel to the main northeast-trending shear zone, but nearly perpendicular to individual quartz lenses, and confirms that the majority of the gold is hosted in the quartz lenses.
A single sample of rock float was collected 450 m to the northeast of the channel sampling reported here.
It assayed 36.5 g/t Au, highlighting exciting potential for strike continuity of the mineralized shear over at least 1 km.
In most recent works, a promising parallel structure located a few hundred metres to the northwest of the main northeast-trending Marrancos shear.
This structure was drilled in the past but never properly sampled or assayed.
Three grab samples collected and yielded grades of 30.10 g/t Au, 9.57 g/t Au and 5.91 g/t Au.