Turmalina Metals advances breccia projects in Argentina and Peru

San Francisco de Los Andes is one breccia pipe in a cluster of 67 that Turmalina Metals (TSXV: TBX; US-OTC: TBXXF) has mapped at its San Francisco project in Argentina’s San Juan province, and the company describes it as “one of the highest grade gold-silver-copper tourmaline breccias ever discovered.”

Turmalina acquired the project in September 2018 and drilling last year at San Francisco de Los Andes returned multiple intercepts of high-grade copper, gold, and silver mineralization below all of the company’s previous drilling, and doubled the known depth of the mineralized system. The final and deepest drill hole of the season, reported on Jan. 25, tested the continuation of the San Francisco de Los Andes pipe to a depth of over 450 metres.

From the most shallow pierce point to the deepest – drill hole SFDH-039 returned 86 metres of 0.47% copper, 1.8 grams gold per tonne and 67 grams silver per tonne (3.4 grams gold-equivalent per tonne; 2.5% copper-equivalent) starting from 28 metres; and 72 metres of 3.47% copper, 0.71 gram gold and 100 grams silver (6.7 grams gold-equivalent and 5.0% copper equivalent) from 397 metres downhole.

Calling the drill hole “a game-changer” for the San Francisco project, Rohan Wolfe, the company’s CEO, noted that all of Turmalina’s previous drilling was confined to depths of within 200 metres and 240 metres of surface and emphasized that the pipe remains open.

“Tourmaline breccia pipes can commonly extend to over one or two kilometres in depth, and it is encouraging to see that San Francisco de Los Andes appears to increase in size and grade with depth,” he commented in a news release.
The company drilled 22 holes (4,653 metres) into the San Francisco de Los Andes pipe last year in its phase two drill program and another nine holes (2,768 metres) testing four regional targets at the project.

Highlights from some of the holes reported earlier included 109 metres of 4.9 grams gold, 109 grams silver and 1.1% copper in SFDH-012, including 27 metres of 9 grams gold, 94 grams silver and 1.08% copper; and 29 metres of 4.2 grams gold, 222 grams silver and 1.4% copper in drill hole SFDH-018.

Polymetallic breccia mineralization. Credit: Turmalina Metals.

Drilling this year in a phase three program will test the extensions of the pipe at depth and open shallow mineralization to the northwest.

The company’s executive and advisory team has several experts on porphyry and breccia systems. Wolfe has spent 22 years specializing in brownfields development of porphyry, breccia and iron oxide copper-gold systems and has worked on projects including Kharmagtai in Mongolia and Merlin in Australia.

Award-winning geologist Doug Kirwin is also a technical advisor to the company. Kirwin was a member of the joint discovery team for the Hugo Dummett deposit at Oyu Tolgoi (and a co-recipient in 2004 of the PDAC’s Thayer Lindsley medal, awarded for the most significant mineral discovery). He is an expert on breccias and has worked for the last 45 years at projects around the world, including Seryung (Indonesia), Eusan (Korea), Moditaung (Myanmar) and Merlin.

The company is building a portfolio of high-grade copper-gold projects in South America. It has spent the last three years reviewing South American systems for high-grade, drill-ready targets, and in addition to the San Francisco project, acquired the Chanape project in Peru in 2020, and plans to announce a third acquisition in 2021.

Chanape is a high-grade breccia cluster, with about 55 pipes. Notable drill intercepts have included 71 metres of 1.92% copper, 0.84 gram gold and 42 grams silver (drill hole CH-DDH-001) and 55 metres of 2.3% copper, 0.6 gram gold and 43 grams silver (drill hole CH-DDH-12);

According to the junior’s most recent corporate presentation, insiders own about 20% of the company. It has about $13.5 million in the treasury and no debt.

Over the last year Turmalina has traded in a range of 27¢ and $1.80 per share and at presstime in Toronto was trading at 95¢. The junior has about 66.3 million common shares outstanding for a market cap of about $63 million.