Turkey Regional Program
Turkey covers a significant area of the well-endowed, prospective and under-explored Tethyan Mineral Belt.
Complementing its stated objective of focusing on advanced opportunities, the company also used the advantage of its experienced local base in Turkey to acquire at low cost a limited number of earlier stage projects with outstanding potential to move quickly to drill stage. During the year, the company acquired 15 licenses on four separate project areas with potential for epithermal gold and porphyry copper-gold (see map). A total of 226 square kilometres were acquired. All the tenements are located in north-eastern Turkey within 150 kilometres of the Sisorta project. Preliminary ground work continues on these tenements.
The Kabatas licenses (ER3150969, ER3150993, ER3159754, ER3159755, ER3159756, ER3166330, ER3166335 and ER3167246) are located at Ordu, in north-eastern Turkey. The area shows strong potential for porphyry copper-gold mineralisation based on previous company drilling and road-cut exposures of porphyry style quartz-sericite-pyrite stockworks, along with anomalous copper and molybdenum in stream sediments. Reconnaissance sampling in the area returned rock sample values of up to 8.3% copper, 0.28 g/T gold and 188 parts per million molybdenum.
The Topcam licenses (ER3167247 ER3167378 ER3167380 ER3167381) are located in north-eastern Turkey. The geology of the area is characterised by a Jurassic to Pliocene volcanosedimentary sequence which has been intruded by Palaeocene to Eocene intrusives. Anomalous stream sediment data point to a potential for epithermal gold and porphyry copper-gold mineralisation, and a contour soil sampling program in the area produced values of up to 864 parts per billion gold and 719 parts per million copper. The company is in the process of carrying out follow-up geological mapping and additional soil and rock sampling on the property.
The Domu tenement (ER3155978) is located in north-eastern Turkey. In the tenement area, reports of previous exploration describe silicified and pyrite-altered granodiorite intruding a sequence of andesitic volcanics and minor marbles. Copper mineralization occurs only in highly altered parts of the granodiorite as small veinlets containing pyrite, malachite, azurite and chalcopyrite. Stream sediment, soil and rock sampling have been carried out by the Turkish Mining Bureau (MTA) returned anomalous copper values within the license area. The company is in the process of carrying out follow-up geological mapping and additional soil and rock sampling on the property.
The Saphane tenement (ER3157213) is located in north-eastern Turkey (Map.1). The tenement was acquired based on its similarity to known epithermal occurrences in nearby tenements. The company is in the process of carrying out follow-up geological mapping and additional soil and rock sampling on the property.