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Um Shashoba –
Gold (Gippsland 50%
)
Location
The prospect is situated about 1.6km south of Gebel Um Shashoba. It consists of very small ancient vein workings scattered over a large area extending from the southern foot of Gabel Shashoba to the summit of Gebel Kulyeit.
Historical mining and previous exploration
Um Shashoba was a centre of mining during ancient times as evidenced by small but numerous piles of tailings. Ancient workings are located along two northerly trending veins. The veins are 380m apart and occupy the edges of a large shear zone. There are a number of open stopes of unknown depth. Numerous washing tables, piles of tailings and grinding stones attest to significant mining activity. The area was prospected during the early part of the 20th century when a prospecting shaft was sunk in the wadi adjacent to one of the historical workings. There is no evidence of any mine production since the time of the ancients.
Geological setting
The Um Shashoba prospect is located within a suite of calc-alkaline volcanics and associated pyroclastic rocks. The main structural feature is a folded sinuous schist belt with a general trend to the northwest. Intense sericitisation and quartz/carbonate veining seems to be related to localized areas of high strain in the schistose volcanics.
Mineralisation
The main workings are small, but lie within a north-south trending belt of sericitic schist at least 1km wide that transects the dark chloritic schists seen on its west side. Some minor bedrock and placer workings occur in this belt to the in the Gebel Shashoba area. The belt is a major carbonate-quartz-sericite altered shear zone. The carbonate-quartz-sericite schist weathers to a pink-buff colour, and includes lenticles and augen of quartz, chloritic schist, quartz-carbonate rock and felsite. Limonite staining is partly after pyrite and partly after iron-bearing carbonate.
Exploration
Previous geochemical sampling has returned gold values of up to 0.63g/t in sheared sediments in an area away from the historical workings.
A single profile of channel sampling was conducted across part of ancient workings in the eastern part of the prospect. The work produced reasonable results with an average of 11.9m at 2.22g/t Au. The profile did not sample 1.6m across the ancient workings.
Seventy regolith samples were collected over an area between the two lines of historical workings. They were collected at 50m spacing along lines 200m apart. The best result was 6.27g/t Au at the end of one of the sample lines adjacent to the eastern ancient workings.
Eight samples returned assays greater than 0.1g/t Au. The sampling identified an anomalous gold zone coincident with a shear that is associated with a north-south line of ancient workings.
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