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afrol News, 23 January - High-grade gold has been discovered at Bisha, some 150 kilometres west of Asmara, the Eritrean capital. This was announced by the Canadian mining company Nevsun Resources Ltd, which owns the property where the gold ore was found after extensive explorations and drilling. Nevsun had made a "new high-grade gold and base metals discovery at the company's 90 percent owned Bisha Property in Eritrea," The property covers 49 square kilometres. Chief Executive John A. Clarke said in a statement. The company recently had completed an initial phase of exploration drilling totalling 804 meters in 6 holes. A more extensive drill program was planned to commence in April. There has not been made any conclusions to whether the gold discovery at Bisha is sufficient for commercial mining operations. There were to be made more explorations. The Nevsun executives however seemed exited by the discovery, terming it "high-grade gold". It was also that the Bisha property "is easily accessed by vehicle on paved and good all weather roads" and is only "a 3.5 hour drive to the capital," with its "excellent port facilities on the Red Sea." There are no commercial mining operations going on in Eritrea, although the international mining industry is massively present on Eritrea's promising soils. While a multitude of mineral ores are known in the country, no explorations have so far concluded on commercially viable mineral deposits. Artisanal gold production is however going on at a moderate scale. Nevsun's explorations in the Bisha area had been extensive before the discoveries were made. Several promising drilling holes also had to be abandoned due to massive sulphide units. Apart from high-grade gold, the Nevsun explorers also had found relatively high concentrations of copper and silver. The Canadian company initiated its explorations on the property in 1998 and 1999, starting with stream sediment sampling and geological mapping. A large gossan outcrop had previously been identified and "subsequent work focused on determining the character and extent of this gossanous material," Nevsun says. Geological mapping identified the region as being underlain by felsic and mafic volcanic rocks. The stream sediment sampling defined a significant area of anomalous copper, lead and zinc values. Geophysical surveys had defined several significant anomalies related to the gossan outcrop. This horizon was traced for hundreds of meters to the south. Several other gossan zones had also been identified, raising the possibility of further discoveries of seldom minerals. Similar base metal deposits in Eritrea were also known from Dubarwa and Adi Nefas, located near Asmara. The Asmara region is also known to have several mineral occurrences, including copper, zinc, lead sulphide, gold and iron deposits. Other parts of the country are also known to have nickel-chromite deposits and silver. Nevsun Resources concentrates its works in Sub-Saharan Africa, with two key projects in Mali and Ghana, which are to start producing in 2004. These combined projects "represent one of West Africa's largest undeveloped gold camps," the company says. "Management believes that the new high-grade discovery at the Bisha property in Eritrea complements Nevsun's advanced Tabakoto and Segala Projects in Mali, as they provide for regional project and corporate growth," Mr Clarke says.
Sources: Based on Nevsun and afrol archives
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