Titan Minerals will kick-off drilling next week aimed at expanding its 100 per cent-owned Dynasty gold project in southern Ecuador, as it follows-up on rock-chip and drill hits outside the existing resource.
Significant rock-chip values from newly-identified epithermal veins at Dynasty’s Cerro Verde prospect include 14.95 grams per tonne gold and 40.4g/t silver, 13.65g/t gold and 136g/t silver and 11.35g/t gold and 14.75g/t silver.
Titan says the rock chips, along with soil geochemistry results, indicate an expansion of the epithermal gold mineralisation footprint well beyond the current defined resource, highlighting new areas exhibiting large-scale coincident gold-silver-arsenic-antimony mineralisation.
Previous drilling at the Cerro Verde prospect has returned some solid assays, but the company chose not to include them in the mineral resource published in July this year due to geological uncertainty.
It says the upcoming drilling campaign will now aim to reduce that uncertainty with minimal drilling, opening up the possibility for growing the Cerro Verde resource, which currently sits at 28.8 million tonnes at 2.08g/t gold and 13g/t silver, giving 1.92 million ounces of gold and 12.04 million ounces of silver.
The previous drill hits were as high as 4.70m at 5.11g/t gold and 32.78g/t silver from 37.72m, 4.44m at 4.05g/t gold and 163.35g/t silver from 76.76m, 4.34m at 2.47g/t gold and 364g/t silver from 76.58m, 4.49m at 4.43g/t gold and 15.54g/t silver from 4.39m, 1.83m at 7.88g/t gold and 2.3g/t silver from 107.3m and 8.39m at 3.45g/t gold and 7.61g/t silver from 278.6m.
Following extensive reconnaissance works including geophysics, soil geochemistry, mapping and rock chip sampling, the Cerro Verde epithermal veining footprint has been expanded well beyond the current defined resource at the Dynasty Gold Project. This represents an exciting opportunity for growth at Cerro Verde. There are also several significant intersections that are located outside the resource, representing immediate growth targets, with significant drill results. We are excited to be commencing drilling at Dynasty in the coming week, with a steady flow of results from Cerro Verde and Papayal expected in our resource growth drilling. Titan Minerals chief executive officer Melanie Leighton.
Dynasty is an advanced stage exploration play comprising five concessions totalling about 139 square kilometres. The project is situated within a corridor of telescoping epithermal-style veining and has a strike length of about nine kilometres.
In July, Titan announced a maiden total mineral resource for the whole Dynasty project of 43.54 million tonnes at 2.23g/t gold and 15.7g/t silver for 3.12 million ounces of gold and 21.98 million ounces of silver. The resource took in contributions from four prospects – Cerro Verde, Iguana, Papayal and Trapichillo.
Management says its Papayal prospect has the highest grade, but the lowest tonnage, with 900,000 tonnes at 4.54g/t gold and 50.85g/t silver for 130,000 gold ounces and 1.43 million ounces of silver.
The Trapichello prospect hosts 2.9 million tonnes at 3.8g/t gold and 39.31g/t silver for 360,000 gold ounces and 3.71 million ounces of silver and the Iguana prospect hosts 10.9 million tonnes at 2.02g/t gold and 13.68g/t silver, giving 710,000 ounces of gold and 4.81 million ounces of silver.
The company says rock-chip samples collected from Papayal returned impressive figures including one grading 43.1g/t gold and 1500g/t silver. A second sample from the prospect returned 26g/t gold and 155g/t silver, while a third recorded 22.7g/t gold and 689g/t silver.
Samples collected from Trapichillo also delivered solid results, with one grading 26.4g/t gold and 25.2g/t silver. Additional samples include 14.5g/t gold and 100g/t silver, while another showed 9.96g/t gold and 240g/t silver.
With Titan’s eyes set on ground-truthing its solid set of rock chips from Cerro Verde and with assays from previous drillholes begging to be included in the mineral resource, the company will no doubt be in for a busy period as it works to try and show Dynasty’s true extent.
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