Historical
Available historical data was acquired from the Geological Fund of RA (Republic of Armenia) in Yerevan, from the reports of the Kapan mine and from international GIS geology sources. More than thirty historic reports (mostly from the geological prospecting expeditions of ArmGeo, but also from expeditions of Ministry of Precious Metals, Institute of Geology of Armenia, TSNIGRI and other organizations) have been located. Data from ten reports has been scanned, georeferenced, digitized, translated and used for interpretation. The Shahumyan polymetallic vein array was first discovered in the early part of the 20th century and was briefly exploited on a small scale during World War II. Detailed exploration of the Shahumyan deposit commenced in 1976 and to date at least 280,000m of diamond drilling and over 33,000m of underground access development from adits on the 700m, 780m, 820m and 860m levels have been completed. Below the 700 level short exploration drives have been completed at the 605m and 505m levels. The bulk of the historical surface and underground exploration drilling has been conducted to the 550m mine level which is approximately 370m below the ground surface. In addition there has been considerable channel and face sampling, and this has been reported to have been carried out every 4m on the development face. We have collated available data into a database which is summarised below.
| Summary of the Available Historic Drillhole and Channel Database |
| Type |
Holes |
Metres |
| Metre – Eater |
133 |
6,301.00 |
| Historic Diamond Drillhole |
1,563 |
290,817.05 |
| Channel Sample - Development |
874 |
18,210.80 |
| Channel Sample - Vein |
7,502 |
32,921.16 |
Current
In addition to the collation of all relevant historical data into a database, Deno Gold has completed the following campaigns of exploration:
- Geophysical airborne VTEM survey (Geotech Ltd. of Canada);
- Acquisition of Quickbird, Shuttle Radar Terrain and Aster land use satellite imagery;
- Stream sediment sampling/BLEG;
- Soil sampling;
- Specialized structural geology mapping (Jigsaw Geoscience of Australia); and
- Exploration and resource diamond and RC drilling.
Preliminary results and interpretations of the various exploration techniques include:
- Conductive targets for ground follow up identified;
- Coherent stratigraphy identified;
- Deformation history confirmed;
- Identification of high angle faults as major mineralizing fluid conduits; and
- Geochemical stream and soil targets for further follow up.