Titan Minerals Limited (ASX: TTM) has resumed drilling in the Papayal Prospect area as part of its major assessment of the Dynasty Gold Project in Ecuador.
The company told shareholders that the two-week hiatus during the end of year holiday period has afforded the opportunity for teams to catch-up on a back log of work cutting core and submitting samples for assay.
Meanwhile final holes drilled on the Iguana Prospect were submitted for analysis in late December, and all Iguana Prospect drill samples are now submitted for analyses. Also, re- sampling to a JORC compliant standard of diamond drill core recovered in 2019, is now complete and all samples from that program have been submitted for assay.
Titan is undertaking a range of diamond drilling and re- logging programmes are focused on defining a higher resolution geologic model to support 3D modelling and geostatistical estimation of resources at the Dynasty Gold Project.
To better define vein geometries for the project, the first oriented drill core is being collected from the ongoing 12,000m diamond drilling campaign, which is over 50% complete. All drill samples for the Iguana Prospect are now at the laboratory with results anticipated to be received in late January. Diamond drilling on the Papayal Prospect commenced in December and drill activity is ongoing.
Iguana Prospect Drilling
Iguana Prospect is a zone of narrow quartz veins with predominantly epithermal style mineralization textures extending over 2.5km northeast from the Cerro Verde Prospect as mapped at surface. Previous resource estimations from the initial 6,521m of historical drilling in 39 holes completed before 2008 cover only 1km strike extent of the vein corridor and have previously inferred up to 375,000 ounces of gold hosted in ten quartz veins.
The Iguana vein corridor is historically drilled on approximately 100m spacing within 100m of surface along 1km of strike extent with a principal vein of up to 4 to 5m true width occurring with smaller sub-parallel veins and vein splays.
The Iguana vein corridor is not a highly ranked target for open pit potential; however, the lateral strike extent of the vein zone holds potential for underground development in the future, and confirmatory drilling activity on Iguana is focused on assessing continuity of mineralisation, confirming vein orientations, and a proportion of the drilling completed includes some minor step-outs on both the main vein zone, and several of the ancillary veins.
An additional 1.2km of strike extension has been mapped and channel sampled, highlighting relatively high-grade mineralization at surface. This high-grade vein zone at Iguana remains un-drilled along strike and below 100m depth.
Meanwhile, Evaluation of diamond drill core from previous drilling programs since 2004 are nearing completion and integration of those data sets for modelling has commenced. The 27,700m re-logging campaign and extension sampling of non-vein drill core for the 201 original diamond drill holes is now over 50% complete. 4,600m of re- logging and sampling of 42 diamond drill holes completed during production drilling in 2019-2020 is 100% complete. All samples re-logged to date have been submitted for analysis with results for 2019 drilling anticipated in early February.
Geophysics
An aerial geophysical survey flown on 100m line spacing over Dynasty and Copper Duke completed through October and November 2020, has delivered high resolution magnetic and radiometric data sets for both project areas, over an aggregate 195km2 area. Terra Geophysics, based in Perth, Western Australia, has been engaged to complete additional data processing and assist in generating initial geology interpretations for targeting and exploration program planning across both projects.
Initial interpretation data sets have been delivered and field check work to underpin an iterative process of field checking the physical property of targeted anomalies for mapping and sampling targets, has commenced, and additional data along with the refined geological interpretation will be used to rate and rank targets for maiden drill testing at Copper Duke in 2021.
At Dynasty, Titan believes the geophysical results will enhance the regional geological interpretation of the district, by identifying multiple anomalies associated with major structural features in the 9km long corridor of outcropping vein hosted mineralisation. At Copper Duke, the results are anticipated to unlock its large-scale potential and identify areas of mineralisation.
