Altan Rio Minerals Limited has announced that the first drilling campaign at the Khavchuu gold exploration project covering 7.14 km2 in TovAimagbegan in early March with two diamond core drills, and will be finished in about a month. The company currently has an option to acquire 100% interest in the project that contains significant geophysical and gold-arsenic geochemical anomalies in a Boroo mine type orogenic gold setting and has never been drilled. The planned reconnaissance drilling is designed to test a large tract of geology over an area of approximately 5 km x 6 km, searching for key structural features such as low-angle fault zones. Three main areas will be drilled in this first effort to gain knowledge of the subsurface stratigraphy and structure and six holes encompassing 1,800 meters of diamond core drilling are planned.
Rock sampling and detailed soil geochemical grids in 2011 in the northwestern quarter of the project showed robust arsenic anomalies coincident with IP chargeability highs, over several NW oriented structures. Low-level gold anomalies were also present. This combination - coincident gold, arsenic and IP highs - is fundamental to all economic deposits discovered thus far in the Boroogol District. During sampling, the team also discovered a small zone of quartz veining hosting visible gold.