Tocvan Resources (TOC.C) announced substantial results Wednesday on the data from their property scale soil sampling survey at the Mexico-based Pilar gold-silver project, with returns of 8 g/t gold and 317 g/t silver among the highlights.
The tiny gold explorer is in the early stages of proving out its property but, in doing so, also announced it has discovered a new gold and silver mineralization on its eastern zone, causing excitement among insiders.
With only 17 million shares outstanding, and with a market cap barely over a million dollars, any positive news will likely bring the potential of high market upside, so sampling results that open the play up are definitely worth cheering about.
NEW DISCOVERY
"Combined, these results have highlighted gold-silver areas and gold-silver trends across the Pilar property from north to south to narrow the focus for drilling," said a company news release this morning. "Historically, the focus for development on the Pilar property has been in the north-west part of the property in the Main Zone and North Hill Zone. [..] In the efforts to define the structures controlling mineralization in the Main, North Hill, and 4-Trench zones, discoveries have been made elsewhere on the property, and those discoveries collectively have revealed a new zone of gold-silver mineralization, the East Zone."
PREPPING FOR DRILLING
While Tocvan is in its early stages on the Pilar property, they're not going in blind. There has been over 17,000 metres of drilling done by other groups on the property, which serve as an advanced starting point. Rock grabs collected in November were drawn in response to high grade gold-silver soil assay results reported by Colibri Resource Corporation two years prior, and showed encouraging numbers.
"Historically, previous operators have focused on developing gold on the Pilar property, but clearly silver should be included as a part of that focus as well, and will be," says the company after consistently substantial silver numbers were found.
Early stage gold explorers rely heavily on ongoing news to demonstrate advancement of their property and investors look for evidence that work is actually being done and not just talked about, so Tocvan is stepping up the work on Pilar. They're planning structural analyses, XRF surveying of samples from across the property and of historic drill hole samples currently being held in storage. This work will combine to identify future drill targets, which the company plans to lock down for a program in the late summer or fall of this year.
THE GEOLOGICAL SIDE
Tocvan notes the Pilar Gold-Silver property 'has been identified as a structurally controlled low-sulphidation epithermal project hosted in Andesite and Rhyolite rocks. Hydrothermal fluids carrying gold, silver and other minerals are transported through the pre-existing structures and deposit out of the fluids and become emplaced within the structures and surrounding host rock.'
The company has focused on three zones in the northwest part of the property with data drawn from historic surface work and drilling: the Main Zone, North Hill, and 4 Trench.
Of the 17 kms of drilling done, highlights include (all lengths are drilled thicknesses):
- 53.47g/t Au & 53.4g/t Ag over 16m
- 17.3g/t Au over 1.5m
- 10.6g/t Au & 37.8g/t Ag over 9m
- 9.64g/t Au over 13m
- 5.27g/t Au over 3m
- 0.75g/t Au over 61m
- 0.73g/t Au over 40m
Of 2.6km of surface and trench channel sampling, highlights include:
- 55g/t Au over 3m
- 28.6g/t Au over 6m
- 3.39 g/t Au over 50m
Tocvan's small size makes it an interesting bet, with any decent sized buy or sell on the stock bringing big swings in share price.
A month ago, similar news to today's saw the stock jump 50% over a handful of days to just over $0.30, with a subsequent slide back to $0.15 in the time since.
With drilling expected later this year, and money in the bank, there's every reason to keep this company on your watchlist.
-- Chris Parry
FULL DISCLOSURE: Tocvan Resources is an Equity.Guru and Stockhouse marketing client