Up to 2 000 m of diamond drilling is expected to start soon to test multiple shallow copper/gold targets along, and parallel to, the Shinganda Splay Fault at London-listed Galileo Resources' Shinganda project, in Zambia.

The drilling will also seek to test the iron oxide copper/gold deposit potential related to the iron alteration clusters and induced polarisation targets highlighted by the geophysical study.

The company announced this on September 20, while revealing the latest results of a licence-wide geophysical review and planning for a Phase 2 drilling programme to test multiple targets over the Shinganda project.

This follows the company's decision to exercise its option to acquire an initial 51% interest in the project, as announced in June.

The company highlighted that a study of historic airborne and ground geophysical survey data, combined with Galileo's own geophysical surveys, soil sampling, and prospecting, has unlocked the structural framework of the property and highlighted potential targets for immediate drill testing.

Among the conclusions of the geophysical study was that high-resolution aeromagnetics reveal a prospective structural setting with three large clusters of intense iron alteration towards the west.

Moreover, historic drilling within and close to iron alteration clusters has returned ample evidence of widespread and, in parts, intense iron-alteration in the form of hematite, magnetite, and lesser pyrite. These boreholes were never assayed.

At the Shinganda copper/gold prospect, a higher-order splay fault coming off the main fault zone can be clearly identified in the aeromagnetic data and probably acts as the primary control for the copper/gold mineralisation.

Soil anomalies greater than 285 parts per million copper occur both along the Shinganda Splay Fault and over iron alteration Cluster A, which are prospective mineralisation targets for copper/gold in the light of an iron oxide copper/gold setting and a new structural understanding, and warrant follow-up drilling.

Several strong, historic induced polarisation chargeability anomalies over the iron alteration clusters have been insufficiently drill-tested to date.

Previous drilling at Shinganda has achieved what Galileo believes are encouraging drill results from a limited programme that included drill intercepts peaking at 50.3 m at 1.54% copper from 21 m downhole depth in hole SHDD002 and prospecting/exploration pitting that returned gold grades up to 33.9 g/t of gold from composite grab samples at one of the planned drill sites.

"The up-to-date geophysical interpretation is an example of how the science of geophysics has progressed. All of our fieldwork and drilling, together with historical work, has been modelled by new techniques, and we now have a much better understanding of the drivers of mineralisation. We are in a very fertile area, and our latest understanding will allow us to direct future drilling programmes to potential best effect,” Galileo CEO and chairperson Colin Bird said.