Sumidouro

Location

The Sumidouro gold project, a medium-stage exploration play, is located in an area of excellent infrastructure in the prolific Quadrilatero Ferrifero, Minas Gerais state, currently and historically Brazil’s major gold producing region (view satellite image).

Comprising 10 contiguous exploration licences aggregating 6420 hectares, Sumidouro is centred on the historic gold mining village of Padre Viegas, near Marianna and Ouro Preto (view property map).

Property Ownership

Colossus Brazilian subsidiary, Colossus Geologia e Participações Ltda (CGPL) has an option agreement with Ouro Preto Mineracao Ltda (OPML) to participate in the Sumidouro gold project. Under this agreement CGPL and OPML (which holds the gold exploration licences rights) have formed a joint venture company in which Colossus can increase its interest to 51% by expending US$1.25M within three years, subject to minimum expenditure of US$0.25M in the first year. After exercising this option Colossus may gain 70% of the venture company by completing a feasibility study on Sumidouro. OPML or CGPL may sell their respective interests or convert these to royalties after Colossus has attained a 51% interest.

Gold Potential

Gold mineralization is widespread in the project area, occupying geological settings similar to those of the nearby Mina Passagem (reportedly 2 million ounces of gold production and resources) in the Mariana anticline. Sumidouro is underlain by metasediments of the Proterozoic Minas Supergroup (as at Passagem), Archaean metasediments and metabasic volcanics of the Rio das Velhas Supergroup (prime host to gold deposits in the Quadrilatero Ferrifero) and granitoid intrusions (view district geology).

The latter form the core of the Sumidouro Dome, outboard of which the metasediments and metavolcanics are disposed in  regional fold interference systems, the product of multiple deformation. Gold mineralization is localised in arcuate zones in the metasediments, metavolcanics and granitoid plutons by fold-fault/shear zone systems, especially near major lithological/rheological contacts/contrasts (view local geology).

Gold was mined from more than 50 open pits and some underground workings during Portuguese Colonial and later times in the Sumidouro area (view historical gold workings). Colonial gold production was not recorded, but was enough to sustain the Padre Viegas settlement, including two churches and Brazil’s first seminary (view Padre Viegas area). The historical gold workings and limited modern exploration by OPML, Anglogold and Colossus outline more than 30 kilometres of auriferous zones in regolith and colluvium (view exploration data).

Colossus’ prime targets are hardrock resources in these auriferous systems. Targets include high grade vein systems and bulk mineable deposits in the metasediments-metavolcanics and granitoid bodies (view local geology). Analogous systems elsewhere include the Fort Knox (Alaska) and Vasilkovskoye (Kazakhstan) granitoid pluton-hosted deposits and metasediment-hosted deposits, such as those in other parts of the Quadrilatero Ferrifero.

Colossus Exploration program

During 2008 Colossus will advance the Sumidouro project by:

• undertaking systematic surface exploration (trenching, sampling and mapping) of the main mineralized zones to better define and prioritise drill targets (completion by May 2008);
• drilling priority targets (late 2008).

Expenditure on this program is expected to be around $US500,000.