Location
Mainly to the south of, but encompassing the town of Natividade in Tocantins State, Brazil, the project area comprises two contiguous exploration licences aggregating 10,000 hectares. Most of the area comprises sparsely vegetated scrublands with minor low intensity agricultural development. Access is by a series of roads and tracks from Natividade (view property satellite image).

Property ownership
Colossus, the project operator, has concluded an option agreement with Terrana Mineradera Ltda (a Brazilian private company) to acquire a 70% interest in the Natividade project. This agreement involves Colossus making staged payments of US$1.5M and exploration expenditures of US$2M over three years.

Natividade gold mineralization is mainly hosted by a metasedimentary –metavolcanic package, a Palaeoproterozoic greenstone belt (view project geology), unconformably overlain by Proterozoic siliciclastics, and intruded by granites exposed to the east of the project area. The greenstone belt is well mineralised and resembles those of West Africa hosting pluton-related gold.

In the Natividade project, Colossus’ prime exploration focus will be on a major regional anticlinorial zone which underlies the hilly part of exploration licence 861274 (view property satellite image). Colossus is targeting high-grade gold vein structures, within the hinge zone of this anticlinorial structure which exhibits extensive Colonial and open pit workings (view historical gold workings) over a 2500x700m area.

High grade gold occurs around some mesoscopic fold hinges and lithological contacts, especially the greyschist-mafic schist contacts. Modern exploration of Natividade has been limited to trenching and surface sampling by Compantia Nacional de Mineração, Colossus and Terrara Mineradora, the latter company also having defined a small (reportedly 30,000 ounces) surficial gold resource in lateritic cover and colonial waste dumps (view exploration data).  Colossus recently completed a scout drilling program, with results expected in the near term

Colossus exploration program
During 2008 Colossus will advance the Natividade project by

• completing geological and structural mapping to clarify the distribution and plunges of higher grade gold ‘shoots’;
• RAB drilling and trench rock chip sampling and soil geochemistry to better define and prioritise drill targets
• Reverse circulation drilling of selected targets.

The proposed program is expected to cost around US$600,000