Tertiary Minerals shares fall on results from Pyramid drilling

Tertiary Minerals updated shareholders on the receipt of provisional gold results from the assaying of drill core on Thursday, from the recently-completed hole TPYR1 at the Pyramid Gold Project in Nevada.

The AIM-traded firm said TPYR1 was designed to twin percussion hole PYR9, which was drilled by Battle Mountain Gold Mining Company in 1989 and documented to have intersected visible gold, and assayed 1.52 metres grading 17.8 grams of gold per tonne from 94.5 metres down hole, and ended in 1.52 metres grading 2.6 grams of gold per tonne at 115.8 metres depth.

It said TPYR1 was drilled to a depth of 137 metres down hole, at the same 45-degree angle and azimuth and from the same general location as PYR9.

Provisional gold assay results from first pass sampling of the drill core from TPYR1 showed a best intersection of 0.55 metres, grading 2.01 grams of gold per tonne from 82.6 metres down hole.

The board said that, while these provisional gold results were lower than those from the historic drill hole, they still confirmed that the target zone is gold-mineralised.

There was also a poor correlation between holes in the position of the better assay results, and so a second programme of core sampling would now be carried out to ensure that no significant gold bearing sections were missed in first pass sampling.

Tertiary said the discrepancy between the position and tenor of assay results between the two holes could be a result of natural geological variation, which could be significant over short distances in high grade gold deposits, or due to the different drilling methods employed.

Battle Mountain's percussion drilling method gave a “larger and arguably more representative” sample, the board said, but percussion drill samples could also be compromised by ground conditions, sample recovery and down-hole contamination issues.

Percussion drilling did not deliver the same level of geological information as core holes, it explained, which is why it chose core drilling for the first hole.

PYR9 was originally drilled by Battle Mountain to test a strong gold, silver and multi-element soil geochemical anomaly that remained open to both the north and south.

Tertiary said now that the underlying alteration zone was confirmed as gold-bearing, it was intending to carry out further soil sampling to fully delineate the anomaly and to define further drill targets.

“We are pleased to confirm that the target is gold bearing and whilst we have not been able to replicate the historic higher-grade results with this first hole, Pyramid remains an attractive exploration project due to the extensive gold-in-soil anomaly and the widespread gold bearing surface samples we described in our May 2019 announcement,” said managing director Richard Clemmey.

“We look forward to continuing work on the Pyramid Gold project and on our growing portfolio of precious and base metal projects in Nevada where further news is expected soon.”

At 0950 BST, shares in Tertiary Minerals were down 27.83% at 0.22p.