Testing Shallow Gold Zones for Underground Development
Nightshift plays a key role in Kavango’s near-term production strategy for Zimbabwe. The prospect offers near-surface mineralisation with the potential for selective open-pit extraction and follow-up underground development.
Community contract miners have worked Nightshift for more than two decades, but only to shallow depths of around 25 metres. Below that, the largely unmined hard rock has provided a clear exploration lead. Kavango’s early drilling results confirm gold-bearing structures extend into the fresh rock at depth and remain open along strike.
A preliminary drill campaign identified 65 significant gold intersections, grading at more than 1 gram per tonne (“g/t”) gold, across six distinct gold-bearing shear zones within a 650m by 150m area. These include:
- 0.90m @ 18.11g/t Au from surface in Hole NSDDIR009
- 8.32m @ 1.07g/t Au from 57.5m in Hole NSDDIR012
- 0.60m @ 7.82g/t Au from 52.40m and 0.87m @ 5.58g/t Au from 56.83m in Hole NSDDIR015
- 1.98m @ 1.45g/t Au from 58.34m, in hole NSDDIR016 that ended in mineralisation
- 1.70m @ 7.10g/t Au from 29.00m and 3.18m @ 2.23g/t Au from 43m in Hole NSDDIR018
- 7.79m @ 1.35g/t Au from 29.11m in Hole NSDDIR025
Nightshift covers an area of at least 650m by 150m with mineralisation open at strike in both directions and at depth
Drilling at Nightshift has confirmed 6 parallel gold mineralised shear zones from surface
The correlation between these intersections and mapped small-scale workings suggests strong structural continuity. The higher-grade mineralisation also appears to be hosted in deeper, unoxidised granodiorite — a setting that may support higher productivity through mechanised mining methods.
Kavango believes Nightshift’s geology may suit spiral decline mining, a technique widely used in structurally-controlled deposits where the ore body dips steeply and grades improve with depth. Spiral declines offer safer access, faster development.
