28 May 2019
Tertiary Minerals plc ("Tertiary" or "the Company")
New Project Acquisition
Tertiary Minerals plc is pleased to advise that it has secured exploration rights and an option to purchase a group of claims in the Pyramid Mining District of Nevada. The project is located 25 miles northwest of Reno and is easily accessible by sealed highway.
Pyramid Project Highlights
· 20-year lease secured over group of 9 patented claims with option to purchase (subject to underlying royalties)
· Additional 25 mining claims staked to cover additional targets along strike
· Located in productive Walker Lane porphyry copper/epithermal gold belt
· Limited historical exploration (1989-90) has defined priority epithermal vein drill target:
Ø Drill hole PYR 9 - intersected visible gold and assayed 1.52m grading 17.8 g/t Au from 94.5m down hole
Ø PYR 9 ended in 1.52m grading 2.6 g/t Au at 115.8m depth
· PYR 9 was only drill hole to effectively test a cohesive 750m long open-ended gold-mercury-arsenic soil geochemical anomaly
· Claims contain a number of untested epithermal veins and stockwork target zones - 43 widespread surface samples assayed up to 7.27 g/t Au and averaged 1.3 g/t Au
· The State of Nevada:
Ø 5th largest gold producer in world
Ø 5.6 M oz of gold produced in 2017
Ø 169.1 M oz of gold produced 1835-2018
Ø Ranked #1 most desirable mining jurisdiction in the world by The Fraser Institute
Commenting today, Managing Director, Richard Clemmey said:
"We are delighted to have acquired an interest in the Pyramid Project. Projects with high-grade gold results in drilling that have not already been followed up are hard to find in Nevada. This acquisition follows the staking of the Paymaster Project earlier this year and is in line with our strategy to build a new project portfolio which will enable the Company to reduce its future geographical, technical, permitting and commodity risk exposure and provide long-term shareholder value".
Maps showing the location of various features described in this news release will be available on the Company's website in due course.
Enquiries Tertiary Minerals plc Richard Clemmey, Managing Director Patrick Cheetham, Chairman |
+44 (0) 1625 838 679 |
SP Angel Corporate Finance LLP Nominated Adviser & Broker Lindsay Mair/Caroline Rowe |
+44 (0) 20 3470 0470 |
SVS Securities plc Joint Broker Elliot Hance |
+44 (0) 203 700 0093 |
Detailed Information
Location
Tertiary's Pyramid Project is located 40km northwest of Reno in the Pyramid Mining District and is readily accessible from State Highway 445 which crosses the northwest tip of the project.
The Property
The Company has secured a 20-year lease with option to purchase a group of 9 patented mining claims. In addition, the Company has staked a further 25 unpatented mining claims adjoining the patents to cover potential extensions along strike.
Patented mining claims are considered as private property under US law and have the advantage that mineral exploration and surface disturbance below 5 acres can be carried out without permits and, in general, mine permitting is a more straightforward process.
Geology & Mineralisation
The Pyramid Mining District lies at the northwest end of the Walker Lane mineral belt a major northwest trending structural deformation zone and a highly productive gold, silver and copper producing region which is host to numerous past and currently producing multi-million ounce epithermal gold deposits as well porphyry copper and porphyry molybdenum deposits.
Within the Pyramid Mining District, the Company's Pyramid Project is underlain by a thick sequence of mid-late Tertiary age (23 Ma old) rhyolitic tuffs interpreted by the Nevada Bureau of Mines & Geology to have formed within an east-west elongated Caldera structure named the Perry Canyon Caldera.
The gold veins at Pyramid lie within the Perry Canyon Caldera and are interpreted from historical mapping and mineral exploration to lie on the margins of a large and deeply buried porphyry system in the southeast part of the district that is currently claimed by copper producer Asarco LLC (a division part of Groupo Mexico). At the higher erosional levels currently preserved at Pyramid such porphyry systems are prospective for high-sulphidation gold deposits (in more central areas) such as those found further south in the Walker Lane at the Goldfield Mining District (4 million ounces of past production at 1oz gold/ton) and low and intermediate-sulphidation epithermal deposits (of which there are many examples in the Walker Lane) in more peripheral areas where the Company's claims are located. This pattern of mineralisation is similar to that of many large porphyry systems in the US, Peru and the Pacific basin countries.
In the main part of the Pyramid District precious metals were mined from three moderately to steeply dipping, northwest-striking vein systems named after the prominent mines that occur along them - Ruth, Burrus, and Bluebird. The Company's claim interests cover the Ruth vein system and a number of parallel vein systems and zones of alteration. In addition to abundant quartz and pyrite, vein minerals in unoxidized ore from the Ruth vein system include barite, anglesite, galena, sphalerite, acanthite, gold and cassiterite.
Past Mining & Exploration
The Pyramid Mining District was established in 1866 with only small-scale production reported. Modern exploration in the Pyramid District has focussed primarily on the search for porphyry copper mineralisation with only limited exploration having been carried out for gold.
The only documented field exploration in the area of the Company's claims was carried out by Battle Mountain Gold Mining ("Battle Mountain") who leased the project from the current lessors, Golden Crescent Corporation, in the period 1988-89. Battle Mountain carried out surface sampling, soil sampling and drilled 10 shallow exploration holes for a total of 1,006m of drilling to depths between 43 and 140m.
Soil sampling was conducted on a 30 x 120m grid within a confined area 600m x 600m centred on Battle Mountain's main target area, the Ruth Mine vein system and associated vein stockwork. This identified a series of gold-in-soil anomalies and eight of their ten drill holes were designed to test a broad gold anomaly located just northwest of the Ruth Mine. These intersected areas of anomalous gold up to 1.5m grading 1.64 grammes/tonne gold (g/t Au) in hole PYR 1 from 10.7m depth.
Battle Mountain's two other drill holes were designed to test a parallel vein west of the Ruth vein system which correlates with a separate strong gold-arsenic-mercury soil anomaly, mercury and arsenic being strongly associated with gold in epithermal gold deposits. This soil anomaly is open ended and continues strongly to the northwest and southeast boundaries of the sampled area.
Drill hole PYR 9 on this western line intersected high-grade gold mineralisation and visible gold within a sample thickness of 1.52m grading 17.8 g/t Au from 94.5m downhole. A broad zone of low-grade mineralisation continued to the end of the hole at 115.8m where the last 1.52m sample graded 2.6 g/t Au.
PYR 10 targeted the same western line soil anomaly some 150m to the southwest but was interpreted to have been drilled in the wrong direction and made no significant gold intersections.
Battle Mountain did not carry out any follow up exploration.
Proposed Mineral Exploration - Tertiary Minerals plc
The association of high-grade gold mineralisation in a previous drill hole associated with a strong and open-ended gold soil anomaly supported strongly by epithermal pathfinder elements mercury and arsenic presents a compelling drill target.
Similar narrow high-grade epithermal gold deposits in Nevada have hosted multi-million-ounce deposits such as the producing Midas Mine where the main veins produced more than 2.2 million ounces of gold and 26.9 million ounces of silver between 1998 and 2013.
Tertiary Minerals intends to follow up Battle Mountain's drilling and soil sampling results with an initial RC and core drilling programme as soon as possible. Core drilling is recommended as water, which can affect sample quality, was encountered in drilling both holes PYR 9 & 10.
The broader potential of the vein systems on the Project area are highlighted by the results of 43 surface chip samples taken by Battle Mountain from various outcropping veins and old mine workings within the Company's Project area. These assayed up to 7.27 g/t Au and averaged 1.3 g/t Au.
This high prospectivity was confirmed by surface grab carried out by the Nevada Bureau of Mines & Geology during a regional assessment in 1999 when samples from the 1km long Ruth vein System averaged 1.3 g/t gold and 131 g/t silver (Garside et al 2003). The highest gold content, 8 g/t Au, was from the Surefire Mine area which has never been drill tested.
A series of maps illustrating the features described in the News Release will be uploaded to the Company's website in due course.
Summary of Terms of Lease/Option
Advanced Annual Minimum Royalty Payments:
· $15,000 payable on signing
· $12,500 payable on or before 12 months from date of agreement
· $12,500 payable on or before 18 months from date of agreement
· $20,000 payable on or before 24 months from date of agreement
· $20,000 payable on or before 30 months from date of agreement
· $27,500 payable on or before 36 months from date of agreement
· $27,500 payable on or before 42 months from date of agreement
· $35,000 payable every 6 months from 48 months after the date of the agreement
Option to buy property (required to purchase property prior to commencement of mining):
· $1,500,000 - At any time before the end of Lease Year 5
· $2,000,000 - At any time after Lease Year 5 and before the end of Lease Year 10
· $2,500,000 - At any time after Lease Year 10 and before the end of Lease Year 20
Royalty Payable:
· 2% Net Smelter Return
· Where underlying pre-existing Royalties exist2 on a particular claim then the 2% Royalty payment on that claim will be reduced by a variable amount to minimise the impost of multiple royalty payments
· Advanced Royalty Payments credited against royalty payment entitlements
· Royalty Area of Interest: 0.5 miles
· Right to buy one half of royalty for $1,000,000 at any time before start of mine and/or plant construction
· Advanced royalty payments not credited against royalty buyout
· Royalty retained after property buyout (subject to half purchase right)
References:
Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Map 146. 2003. Geology of the Fraser Flat Quadrangle and the west half of the Moses Rock Quadrangle, Washoe County, Nevada. Larry J. Garside, Stephen B. Castor, Craig M. dePolo, and David A. Davis, with a section on aeromagnetic lineament analysis, Warm Springs Valley, by Michael C. Widmer.
Notes:
1. The information in this release has been compiled and reviewed by Mr. Patrick Cheetham (MIMMM, MAusIMM) who is a qualified person for the purposes of the AIM Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies. Mr. Cheetham is a Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining and also a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy.
2. Three of the nine claims subject to the lease agreement are known to be subject to a third party underlying 4% gross proceeds royalty.
Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) Disclosure
Certain information contained in this announcement would have been deemed inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 until the release of this announcement.
Notes to Editors
Tertiary Minerals plc (ticker symbol 'TYM') is an AIM-traded mineral exploration and development company building a multi-commodity project portfolio.
CAUTIONARY NOTICE
The news release may contain certain statements and expressions of belief, expectation or opinion which are forward looking statements, and which relate, inter alia, to the Company's proposed strategy, plans and objectives or to the expectations or intentions of the Company's directors. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors beyond the control of the Company that could cause the actual performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from such forward-looking statements. Accordingly, you should not rely on any forward-looking statements and save as required by the AIM Rules for Companies or by law, the Company does not accept any obligation to disseminate any updates or revisions to such forward-looking statements.
