Bonsiega Project, Burkina Faso

The Bonsiega project consists of six granted exploration permits and one application which together cover 1,186 square kilometres and over 80 kilometres of strike length in the Fada N’Gourma greenstone belt.  PD assembled this ground package over a 12 month period both by applying for ground in its own right and concluding agreements with four other parties.

Various parts of the project area were explored previously by a number of foreign companies including Emerging Africa Gold, Anglo American (known locally as ‘Anmercosa’), Sanu Resources, Ashanti and Birrimian (BVI) Ltd (“Birrimian”). Birrimian was acquired by ElDore Mining Corporation (“ElDore”) which is PD’s joint venture partner on four of the permits.

The previous work consisted of geological mapping, airborne geophysical surveys, soil geochemistry and drilling. The latter was confined to relatively small areas compared to the overall size of the project. Despite this, according to databases assembled by Birrimian, a series of ore width and grade intercepts were obtained by prior explorers at various locations in the area. The project area also covers numerous artisanal workings (e.g. Figure 2).

RAB drilling by both PD and Birrimian at the Fouli prospect (Figure 1) has revealed a north-east trending 1.7 km long zone of gold anomalism which is open to the north-east and includes the drill intercepts listed below.

TABLE 1: RAB drill intercepts – Fouli prospect

* Values calculated from maximum mineralised interval

Figure 1: Geology and contours of bedrock values from RAB drilling by ElDore and PD at the Fouli prospect.

Elsewhere, large areas of prospective shear zone are thought to be hidden under alluvial cover. One example is the Laterite Hill zone on the Sirba permit where a 10 km long zone of artisanal workings is located in the flood plain of the major Sirba River. Here, artisanal miners have found gold in areas where the weathered bedrock has been uncovered. In addition, in March 2010, artisanal miners discovered a new alluvial gold find beneath approximately five metres of cover in an area where it seems that no bedrock source for gold has yet been found (Figure 2).

PD regards the Bonsiega Project area as being underexplored with excellent potential for the discovery of large open pittable gold deposits. The exploration ground lies along strike from one of West Africa’s new gold mines, Samira Hill and it ranks highly in PD’s country-scale assessment. Previous exploration was hampered by widespread thin cover of alluvium and transported laterite and, although soil geochemistry revealed widespread gold anomalism, coverage was inadequate to identify targets for drilling. Despite this, drilling by former explorers and PD has obtained ore grade and width intercepts at multiple prospects. PD is also hopeful of identifying new zones of gold mineralisation in the areas of cover.



Figure 2: Photograph of the Tamboana artisanal workings on the Sirba exploration permit. In March 2010, after alluvial gold was discovered at a depth of around 5 metres, this rapidly became a site to which hundreds of artisanal miners were drawn. Inset of coarse gold recovered from the site.