Titan Minerals is laying its ears back in preparation for immediate follow-up drilling to test potential lateral and depth extensions of a 2km-diameter geophysical anomaly at its Copper Ridge and Meseta prospects in Ecuador, where it believes it may be sitting on a significant porphyry deposit.
The company’s perceived potential at its Linderos project is interpreted from results of its recently-completed three-dimensional induced-polarisation (3D-IP) geophysical survey across the two prospects. It turned up the big IP chargeability anomaly at a site where Titan’s previous diamond drilling showed strong mineralisation.
It suggests the company may be sitting on a mineralised porphyry body at depth much bigger than it previously estimated and which extends across both prospects and possibly beyond.
Management says the new layer of geophysical information further endorses its view that it has only just begun to scratch the surface of the porphyry potential at Linderos, a view further reinforced by the observed phyllic alteration and green-grey sericite overprinting of potassic alteration.
The company plans to drill its newly-defined porphyry system early next year.
Results of the Linderos Project IP survey have confirmed our hypothesis that the Copper Ridge porphyry and Meseta epithermal gold mineral systems are intimately associated. A 2-kilometre chargeability anomaly has highlighted phyllic alteration/ sulphide mineralisation associated with a porphyry system to extend from Copper Ridge, all the way to the Meseta epithermal gold system in the north. This is a very exciting development for Titan, implying a much larger porphyry system than previously recognised by surface mapping, geochemistry, and drilling to date. Titan Minerals chief executive officer, Melanie Leighton.
The 3D-IP survey was undertaken in the company’s 100 per cent-held Linderos project in southern Ecuador. It covered an area of about 9 square kilometres and was designed to map the distribution of subsurface sulphide mineralisation and phyllic alteration associated with porphyry systems including the Copper Ridge porphyry, in addition to the Meseta, Capa Rosa and Nueva Esperanza prospects.
Phyllic alteration is a hydrothermal alteration zone in a permeable rock that has been affected by circulation of hydrothermal fluids. It is commonly seen in copper porphyry ore deposits in calc-alkaline rocks. It is characterised by the assemblage of quartz, sericite and pyrite and occurs at high temperatures and moderately acidic conditions.
Titan’s gradually dawning awareness that it might be sitting on a potential hidden giant follows its initial discovery in maiden drilling at its Copper Ridge porphyry prospect last year, where wide intervals of disseminated and vein-hosted chalcopyrite-molybdenite, pyrite and pyrrhotite mineralisation in porphyry were intersected at shallow depths in all four completed holes from an eight-hole, 3700m program.
The company’s anticipation continued to build with results in mid-February from a maiden drilling campaign at nearby Meseta that showed drillholes had intercepted multiple pyrite-sphalerite-arsenopyrite and galena-massive sulphide veins, with several significant intersections of high-grade gold and silver, in addition to significant intersections of silver, zinc, lead, gold and copper.
Management says Meseta displays metal zonation and alteration assemblages typical of intermediate sulphidation systems that are spatially-related to nearby porphyry systems. Significant results from Meseta include a notable 7.22m grading 13.77 grams per tonne gold, 12.9g/t silver, 0.15 per cent copper and 0.38 per cent zinc from 66.28m, with higher-grade intercepts of 0.92m grading 31.5g/t gold, 24.3g/t silver, 0.25 per cent copper from 68.28m and 0.58m going 99.8g/t gold, 89.9g/t silver, 0.98 per cent copper and 0.31 per cent zinc.
The results are all contained within a broader intersection of 76.5m grading 1.41g/t gold, 5.63g/t silver, and 0.27 per cent zinc from surface.
Management says Meseta is the first of several epithermal gold targets within the Linderos project to be drilled and that other high-priority epithermal prospects exist nearby and appear to be driven by adjacent porphyry copper-gold sources.
The company notes that further reinforcement of the mineralising associations comes in the form of a strong north/north-west-trending chargeability anomaly that was identified on the eastern side of Copper Ridge at about 350m depth. It coincides with the ends of two previous diamond drillholes that both terminate in strong copper mineralisation.
Titan says copper mineralisation in the two holes is associated with disseminated chalcopyrite (0.8 per cent), pyrrhotite (2.5 per cent), and pyrite (0.4 per cent) in one hole and chalcopyrite (0.7 per cent) and pyrite (0.4 per cent) in the other.
The company mused last year that the results may indicate a bigger porphyry copper intrusion just below the drillholes and that has now been verified by the 3D-IP geophysics.
The company says it is continuing to expand its understanding of the porphyry system through further detailed mapping and surface geochemistry and it is refining its imminent phase-two drilling program to accommodate the new information and interpretations.
Management adds that it has several other high-priority target areas within the project, which it has identified from historical data and confirmed through geological reconnaissance. It will assess the targets with follow-up mapping and surface geochemical sampling.
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