MAIDEN DRILL PROGRAM ongoing at EL PICACHOAnother week of low volume trading. Tocvan has started drilling at El Picacho for the first time. There is excellent overview information about Picacho and Pilar in this release. Hopefully they will get good visuals during drilling, then results soon to follow, the cores are apparentliy relatively shallow and will target areas near historic working and mine shafts. We now from sampling that gold is there, just a matter of how big this can be.
Drilling is continuing at Tocvan Ventures Corp.'s El Picacho gold-silver project in Sonora, Mexico. Initial drilling is focused on two primary areas within the San Ramon prospect: Las Guijas and San Ramon. Both target areas have returned high-grade gold with silver mineralization associated with historic mine workings. In 2012, three reconnaissance reverse circulation drill holes were completed by Timmins Gold. All three drill holes intersected low-grade mineralization and alteration associated with multiple shear zones, derisking the potential for continued mineralization at depth. The high-grade corridors associated with the old mine workings were never drill targeted. The company plans to tie together the low-grade mineralization seen in historic drilling with the high-grade samples from the workings through targeted drilling. Analysis and interpretation of these data will be used to plan follow-up drilling. El Picacho is host to several other target areas permitted for drilling that span across the 24-square-kilometre project area.
"We are very excited to be drilling at El Picacho where there is no shortage of drill targets to evaluate the potential of this highly prospective area," stated Brodie Sutherland, chief executive officer. "San Ramon has long been our priority target due to the established historic workings identifying high-grade structures with the potential of low-grade mineralization in between. There are a lot of parallels to the local San Francisco mine which was discovered from very similar surface characteristics and substantial artisanal workings. We look forward to evaluating these results as we start to unlock the potential of El Picacho."
About the El Picacho property
The El Picacho gold-silver property is interpreted as an orogenic gold system within the regional Caborca orogenic gold belt known for producing gold mines that include La Herradura (over 10 million ounces Au) and San Francisco (over three Moz Au). The project is 140 kilometres north of Hermosillo and only 18 kilometres southwest of the producing San Francisco mine. The project totals 24 square kilometres. Five primary zones of mineralization have been identified across the property totalling over six kilometres of prospective trends. Surface sampling and historic workings have identified high-grade gold and silver values. The project has only seen widely spaced reconnaissance drilling with no follow-up. Tocvan believes this provide an excellent opportunity for discovery of a multimillion ounce district.
About the Pilar property
The Pilar gold-silver property has recently returned some of the regions best drill results. Coupled with encouraging gold and silver recovery results from metallurgical test work, Pilar is primed to be a potential near-term producer. Pilar is interpreted as a structurally controlled low-sulphidation epithermal system hosted in andesite rocks. Three primary zones of mineralization have been identified in the northwest part of the property from historic surface work and drilling and are referred to as the Main zone, North Hill and 4-T. The Main zone and 4-T trends are open to the southeast and new parallel zones have been recently discovered. Structural features and zones of mineralization within the structures follow an overall northwest-southeast trend of mineralization. Mineralization extends along a 1.2 km trend, but only half of that trend has been drill tested so far. To date, over 22,000 metres of drilling have been completed.
- 2022 phase III diamond drilling highlights include (all lengths are drilled thicknesses):
- 116.9 m at 1.2 grams per tonne Au, including 10.2 m at 12 g/t Au and 23 g/t Ag;
- 108.9 m at 0.8 g/t Au, including 9.4 m at 7.6 g/t Au and five g/t Ag;
- 63.4 m at 0.6 g/t Au and 11 g/t Ag, including 29.9 m at 0.9 g/t Au and 18 g/t Ag.
- 2021 phase II RC drilling highlights include (all lengths are drilled thicknesses):
- 39.7 m at one g/t Au, including 1.5 m at 14.6 g/t Au;
- 47.7 m at 0.7 g/t Au, including three m at 5.6 g/t Au and 22 g/t Ag;
- 29 m at 0.7 g/t Au;
- 35.1 m at 0.7 g/t Au.
- 2020 phase I RC drilling highlights include (all lengths are drilled thicknesses):
- 94.6 m at 1.6 g/t Au, including 9.2 m at 10.8 g/t Au and 38 g/t Ag;
- 41.2 m at 1.1 g/t Au, including 3.1 m at six g/t Au and 12 g/t Ag;
- 24.4 m at 2.5 g/t Au and 73 g/t Ag, including 1.5 m at 33.4 g/t Au and 1,090 g/t Ag.
- 15,000 m of historic core RC drilling. Highlights include:
- 61 m at 0.8 g/t Au;
- 16.5 m at 53.5 g/t Au and 53 g/t Ag;
- 13 m at 9.6 g/t Au;
- Nine m at 10.2 g/t Au and 46 g/t Ag.