Group Ten Reports High-Grade Gold, Palladium, and Platinum R VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / May 29, 2020 / Group Ten Metals Inc. (TSX.V: PGE)(OTCQB:PGEZF)(FSE:5D32) (the "Company" or "Group Ten") is pleased to announce results of geological sampling and mapping programs, together with assay results completed on past drill core, from the Company's flagship Stillwater West platinum group element, nickel, copper, cobalt ("PGE-Ni-Cu-Co") project in Montana, USA.
This is the fifth in a series of planned news releases to report results of exploration programs that focused on the advancement of drill-defined mineralized zones at five multi-kilometer-scale priority target areas. Subsequent news releases will report results from ongoing modelling work and rhodium assays from drill and field samples prior to our 2020 field exploration programs.
Highlights include:
- The Pine target shows very high-grade gold, palladium and platinum mineralization in drilling, soils and rock sampling that is now being further assessed by the Company.
- Drilling at the Pine target returned values including 16.94 g/t 3E (16.19 g/t Au, 0.24 g/t Pt, 0.50 g/t Pd) over 7.98 meters and 31.02 g/t 3E (28.7 g/t Au, 1.06 g/t Pt, 1.27 g/t Pd) over 2.6 meters hosted within the chromite-rich ultramafic stratigraphy.
- High-grade gold, palladium, and platinum values ranging to 16.18 g/t 3E (13.80 g/t Au, 1.10 g/t Pd, and 1.28 g/t Pt) were returned in rock samples taken by Group Ten in 2019 at the Pine target, with a total of 13 samples returning from 2 to 30 g/t platinum equivalent grade mineralization to date by the Company.
- At the HGR target, nine kilometers east of the Pine target, high-grade gold, palladium, and platinum values ranging to 19.06 g/t 3E (14.30 g/t Au, 3.10 g/t Pd, and 1.66 g/t Pt) were returned in assays conducted by the US Geological Survey ("USGS") on select samples of historic drill core from the HGR target area at Iron Mountain that had not previously been assayed for precious metals.
- Results have identified a "gold suite" of pathfinder elements that co-occur in high-grade samples.
Michael Rowley, President and CEO, commented, "Our systematic approach in consolidating and exploring the famously metal-rich yet underexplored Stillwater district continues to proffer exciting and unexpected revelations. Our collaboration with the US Geological Survey has revealed that core drilled in 1977 at the HGR target contains high-grade gold, palladium, and platinum that were not previously recognized, and that are comparable to grades seen at the Pine target on the western side of the district. In addition, we have identified geological similarities, including a suite of pathfinder elements that occur together in both locations, that provide a guide for targeting gold-rich mineralization across the 25-kilometer-wide property. These high-grade gold zones are now being recognized to be much more broadly distributed and to occur within some of the same horizons that host the bulk-tonnage "Platreef-style" deposits of palladium, platinum, gold, rhodium, nickel, copper, and cobalt in the lower Stillwater complex. We look forward to providing further news including additional exploration results, updates on modelling work at the most advanced target areas, ahead of field exploration in 2020."
Gold Suite Program and Results
A total of 40 samples were assayed from the HGR and Pine targets, which are two of the five most advanced target areas at Stillwater West (see Figure 1). Samples from the Pine target consisted of rock chip samples gathered by Group Ten in 2019, while the HGR samples consisted of select intervals of chromite-sulphide bearing bronzite cumulate core retained by the USGS from hole 355-71, originally drilled by AMAX in 1977 but only partially assayed at that time. Results from HGR core assays by the USGS demonstrate high-grade gold values in addition to platinum, palladium, nickel, arsenic, bismuth, and antimony (see Table 1).
The HGR target was tested by Group Ten in 2019 with three drill holes, with hole IM2019-2 testing the area near historical AMAX hole 355-71 (see December 18, 2019 news release). Sulphide-bearing bronzite cumulate intercepted in IM2019-2 over a 14-meter interval from 114 to 128 meters depth, broadly corresponding to the 355-71 interval tested by the USGS, returned highly anomalous concentrations of the same distinct metal suite seen in 355-71, including gold, platinum, palladium, arsenic and bismuth.
TABLE 1 - High-Au samples from AMAX drill hole 355-71, HGR Target (Bow et al., 2020)1
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The Pine target, situated approximately nine kilometers to the west of Iron Mountain, has been recognized as an occurrence of high-grade gold-PGE mineralization associated with sheared, chromite-bearing ultramafic rocks. It is one of five advanced target areas where the Company sees the potential to quickly establish preliminary mineral resource estimates, with seven drill holes from 1983 and 2004 that define a precious metals-rich mineralized zone that is 150 meters strike with an average width of 15 meters that has been tested to a depth of 90 meters (see Table 2 and Figure 7 below, and news releases from June 4, 2019, January 25, 2019, and May 13, 2020).
TABLE 2 - Pine Target Drill Results
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Rock chip samples taken from rubble crop near historical drill holes has confirmed the presence of high-grade gold values. As shown in Table 3, assay results returned elevated values of arsenic and bismuth, suggesting a geochemical affinity with the HGR drill holes and confirming the presence of unusual concentrations of arsenic and bismuth associated with gold-rich samples from widely spaced targets within the Stillwater West property.
TABLE 3 - High-Grade Gold Results from 2019 Rock Samples, Pine Target
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Dr. Craig Bow, Chief Geologist, commented, "This additional geochemical data for gold-rich samples gives us a clearer sense of the distinctive geochemistry of these rocks. In addition to arsenic and bismuth, we also see elevated values of antimony and tellurium, which are extremely unusual in bulk rock assays from elsewhere in the Stillwater Igneous Complex. The fact that we now have two examples from widely spaced locations in the Peridotite Zone suggests that a bona fide, previously unrecognized gold-enriched style of mineralization can occur along with bulk tonnage PGE-Ni-Cu-Co targets."
As announced May 13, 2020 and summarized in Figures 2, 3, and 4, work in 2019 significantly expanded the area of highly anomalous gold, palladium, and platinum in soils and advanced the developing block model by re-logging and re-assaying drill core from 2004.
Mineralization at the Pine and HGR targets remains open to expansion in all directions.
Not saying to buy or sell.
GLTA
Ron