Arras Minerals Corp. is pleased to announce the results of 135 grab samples taken from Soviet-era exploration trenches at the Karagandy-Ozek project (“Karagandy-Ozek” or the “Project”) located within the Company’s Elemes exploration licence (“Elemes” or the “Licence”) in northeastern Kazakhstan.
Highlights include:
- A total of 135 grab samples, collected by Arras, have returned grades up to 29 grams per tonne (“g/t”) gold (“Au”), 287 g/t silver (“Ag”) and 238 g/t tellurium (“Te”), with average grades of 3.5 g/t Au, 15.3 g/t Ag and 18.7 ppm Te.
- The northern most trenches delineate a zone of high-grade Au mineralization of at least 650 meters that remains entirely open to the NE. The average grade for 63 grab samples collected from the northern zone is 5.6 g/t Au, 20.4 g/t Ag and 29.5 ppm Te.
- The mineralization is interpreted as a low sulfidation epithermal gold-silver deposit that forms part of a far larger porphyry-epithermal system within the Elemes license that includes the Berezki Central and Berezki East porphyry copper-gold prospects, and Quartzite Gorka breccia-hosted intermediate sulfidation epithermal copper-gold-silver-lead-zinc prospect.
- Located to the nearby past-producing, high-grade epithermal Au-Ag Aimandai mine.
Tim Barry, CEO, commented, “We are very pleased with our first pass sampling program of the Elemes licence. Our mapping and sampling program suggests we have a fully intact, and largely unexplored epithermal and porphyry system. It should be noted that the mineralization identified in the Elemes licence is a completely different mineralizing system to the Beskauga deposit, which sits 85 kilometers to the east. We believe we are just scratching the surface of the potential of the Bozshakol-Chingiz metallogenic arc and our team is methodically advancing towards establishing drill targets at some of these new areas.”
The Karagandy Ozek Project: is located within the 425 square kilometer “Elemes” mineral exploration license, which was acquired in 2022. Elemes benefits from excellent modern infrastructure and ease of accessibility, being located only 20 kilometers (“km”) from Arras’ operational base in the city of Ekibastuz, northeastern Kazakhstan. A paved highway runs through the license, and within 1 km of the Karagandy Ozek project. 1,100 KVA power lines, heavy rail, and the Irtysh–Karaganda irrigation canal all lie within a 20 km radius of the project. The past producing high-grade Au-Ag epithermal Aimandai mine is nearby.
The gold-silver-tellurium mineralization at Karagandy-Ozek is hosted in zone of quartz veining (individual veins between 0.5 to 1 m width), that display typical low sulphidation textures including crustiform banding, euhedral crystal infill of vein voids, and bladed textures (quartz after calcite) (Figure 2 below). A zone of strong silicification and argillic (kaolinite-illite-quartz) alteration surrounds the quartz veins.
The mineralization is interpreted as a low-sulfidation epithermal gold-silver deposit that forms part of a far larger porphyry-epithermal system within the Elemes license. Nearby is the past-producing Aimandai mine, a high-grade epithermal Au-Ag deposit which according to historical Soviet reports has an average resource grade of 24.6 g/t Au and 34.7 g/t Ag with minor copper, lead and zinc.
A high-resolution airborne magnetic survey over the Elemes and 3D inversion of the resulting data demonstrates that Karagandy-Ozek and the aforementioned associated prospects are all located within a 9 km x 3.5 km aeromagnetic low feature interpreted to represent magnetite destruction associated with hydrothermal alteration. The airborne survey has significantly improved the Company’s understanding of the structural controls of the mineralization and provided several new drill targets within the Elemes license.
The Elemes license is located within the Bozshakol-Chingiz metallogenic belt that also hosts the Company’s flagship Beskauga porphyry copper-gold-silver project approximately 80 km to the east, and KAZ Minerals’ Bozshakol porphyry copper-gold mine (one of the largest copper resources in Kazakhstan) approximately 60 km to the northwest.
Assay and QAQC Procedures:
Samples were bagged and sealed in the field to ensure integrity during transport. Average sample weight was 5 to 6 kilograms. All sample preparation and geochemical analysis of the rock samples were undertaken by ALS Global at its laboratories in Karaganda (Kazakhstan) and Loughrea (Republic of Ireland), respectively. ALS preparation and analytical labs are accredited to ISO 17025:2005 UKAS ref 4028 and have internal Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) programs for monitoring accuracy and precision. ALS Global is entirely independent of the Company. After drying samples were crushed by ALS to >70% passing below 2 mm and split using a riffle splitter. 250 g splits were pulverized to 85 % passing below -75-microns. A 30 g split of the pulp was analyzed for gold content by fire assay with an Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) finish (ALS method: Au-AA25™) at ALS Karaganda. A second pulp split was then air freighted to ALS Loughrea and analyzed for 48 elements by Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) after four-acid digestion on a 0.25 g aliquot (ALS method: ME-MS61™). Samples exceeding 100 g/t silver were re-analyzed using a 4-acid digest ICP-MS ore grade method (ALS method: Ag-OG62™).
Source: https://www.arrasminerals.com/