ASX-listed Australian Mines has entered into a legally binding term sheet with Cabral Resources, a subsidiary of TSX-listed GoldMining and Majestic D&M, to earn-into the Boa Vista gold project in Pará state, northern Brazil.

Under the terms of the agreement, Australian Mines may earn up to an 80% interest in the project through staged exploration and development expenditure and milestone-based achievements.

Boa Vista is held 84.04% by Cabral, 15.95% by Majestic and 0.01% by Mineração Regent Brasil.

The project is located in Brazil’s prolific Tapajós gold province, which hosts numerous active projects and operators.

The VG1 prospect contains an historic inferred resource of 8.47-million tonnes at 1.23 g/t gold for 336 000 oz.

Mineralisation at VG1 remains open along strike and at depth, with broad, continuous gold zones extending about 600 m in strike and up to 85 m in width – drill-tested to about 120 m depth, indicating potential for bulk-tonnage, openpit development.

The VG1 prospect lies within a gold-in-soil anomaly trending to the west-northwest over 2 km in length and up to 350 m in width.

Diamond drilling at VG1 has intersected thick zones of gold mineralisation from surface which includes high-grade intercepts.

The presence of shallow high-grade en-echelon structures offers opportunity to further enhance openpit grades, Australian Mines points out.

Initial testwork indicates recoveries greater than 95%, with up to 60% gold recovered through simple gravity methods and no deleterious elements identified.

Partner GoldMining is actively drilling its São Jorge project 80 km away, which Australian mines says underscores the district’s exploration potential.

Only 26 diamond holes have been drilled to date (totalling 4 593.8 m), leaving considerable blue sky exploration potential, the company highlights.

It plans to start light detection and ranging, and magnetic, surveys, followed by an initial 3 000 m diamond drill programme to test expansion potential and refine targets.

“The Tapajós region has long been recognised for its high-grade, structurally focused gold systems, but broad, continuous zones of disseminated gold mineralisation such as those observed at Boa Vista are rare.

“The Boa Vista gold project offers compelling near-surface mineralisation with district-scale exploration upside, supported by existing datasets and strong historic drilling results. We look forward to rapidly progressing exploration with a view to defining a substantial Joint Ore Reserves Committee resource in the near term,” says Australian Mines CEO Andrew Nesbitt.