Whilst most people would be polishing up the shotgun at the thought of someone else digging for gold on their lease, many West Perth gold mining companies are far more strategic than that.
West Africa is riddled with local villagers who switch from agriculture to mining during the dry season, often braving 40 degree heat with picks and shovels to dig hundreds of holes that look like anthills in search of the elusive yellow metal.
They generally only take surface gold which, in the overall scheme of things is immaterial but in doing so they leave a trail of evidence of outcropping gold lodes that can be of great benefit to mining companies.
Perth based Drake Resources is one such company that has recently benefited from small scale artisanal mining at their Seimana gold project in West Africa.
The company has recently mapped 14 new artisanal mining sites and they have managed to extend a further 6 existing sites. All sites involved mining of gold ores from in situ quartz veins as opposed to alluvial & eluvial mining.
At least 7 of the new sites exhibit mineralised veins with an extent of at least 200m, a width of at least 10m and an abundance of pits and shafts.
Drake have previously enjoyed considerable success with rock chip samples on the southern portion of the Seimana project with samples grading 70.8g/t, 42.9g/t, 29.4g/t, 26.7g/t and 15.8g/t gold.
Previous drilling results in the same area were also cause for excitement with samples of 4m@19.8g/t , 3m@5.6g/t, 3m@5.06g/t 3m@4.4g/t and 2m@7g/t gold.
