Torq Resources TSXV:TORQ says it has commenced its follow-up drill program at the Margarita iron-oxide-copper-gold project, located on the Coasta Coardillera belt in Chile and where Torq made a new discovery of 90 metres (m) of 0.94% copper and 0.84 g/t gold during the first ever drill program on the project.
Torq says it plans to drill approximately 4,000 m in its second phase of drilling along a 1 kilometre (km) length of the Falla 13 structural corridor that exhibits clear geochemical and geophysical signatures corresponding to the mineralization encountered in an earlier drill hole.
Torq is a Vancouver-based copper and gold exploration company with a portfolio of premium holdings in Chile. It is seeking to establish itself as a leader of new exploration in prominent mining belts. Torq’s technical team includes Chile-based geologists with invaluable local expertise and a noteworthy track record for major discovery in the country.
The greenfields discovery at Margarita is within a 1 km long section of the Falla 13 corridor that exhibits a clear signature of geophysical and geochemical responses associated with mineralisation. This provides the Chile-based technical team with “a great deal of confidence” that they can quickly outline a large-scale copper-gold deposit in the area.“We are extremely excited to commence drilling at Margarita and believe we have a strong probability of significantly expanding on the impressive IOCG discovery that we recently announced,” said Shawn Wallace, CEO and Chair of Torq Resources. “This second phase of drilling has the potential to generate pivotal results and provide dimensions for the strong mineralized system at the project.”
In addition, the technical team has identified a number of high quality targets on the project with similar characteristics as those observed at the Falla 13 discovery, which Torq Resources says it plans to further explore in a third phase of drilling.
Regular readers will recall we picked Torq Resources as one of our stocks in our current venture portfolio. Two of the key selling points for us were the experience and proven track record of the management team, which boasts a high pedigree, and secondly the quality of the on the ground technical team in Chile. This experience of the highly fragmented tenement market in Chile has, we believe, helped this miner to rifle shoot a number of interesting projects.
Falla 13 target characteristics
The Falla 13 structural corridor includes a 1 km target area that is defined by strong geochemical and geophysical characteristics that are associated with the mineralisation encountered in its drill hole 22MAR-013R.
Geochemically, the target area is characterised by a copper-in-soils anomaly, as defined by portable X-Ray fluorescence (pXRF) and gold in select rock samples over a 900 m strike length.
In addition, there is a strong correlation between the mineralised intercept in drill hole 22MAR-013R and strong magnetic, chargeability and conductivity highs from ground-based geophysical surveys, which are associated with magnetite, copper sulphide mineralisation and strong hydrothermal alteration along the Falla 13 structure, respectively.
Collectively, the geological, geochemical and geophysical signatures encountered in drill hole 22MAR-013R extend along strike for approximately 1 km, demonstrating the potential to expand on the initial discovery.