Tesoro drilling at El Zorro hits multiple gold zones
Drilling continues at El Zorro with 10 drill holes having now been completed.
Drilling at Tesoro Resources’ (ASX: TSO) El Zorro project in Chile has intersected multiple zones of gold mineralisation, returning what the company describes as “thick high grade” results.
Two gold zones were hit, confirming their existence identified from results of another hole.
The hole, ZDDH00021, is one of 11 that Tesoro is drilling to follow up large-scale channel sampling undertaken in late 2019, which estimated a 785m strike length at the Coquetas prospect within the El Zorro ground.
Partial assay results have only been received for the latest hole but the first set of data shows the drilling intercepted 19.25m at 2.86 grams per tonne gold from 189.25m — including 6.15m at 7.37g/t — and 1.5m at 20.82g/t from 193.9m.
The assay results cover drilling to a depth of 209.33m, with results still to come for the remainder to the end of hole at 261.8m.
Tesoro plans to re-enter the hole as the mineralisation remains open.
Results showing there are two mineralised bodies intercepted by the hole are consistent with what was found in previous hole, ZDDH00017.
Major fault located north of Coquetas
Ten holes have been completed with a final, eleventh hole, now in progress.
Tesoro is also encouraged by assays from another hole, ZDDH00020, which returned a narrow intercept of 0.3m at 3.33g/t from 87.3m.
Tesoro managing director Zeff Reeves said the hole’s location will be further investigated with mapping and sampling work.
“Hole ZDDH00020, although only returning a narrow intercept, has provided valuable information which has identified a major fault offset to the north of Coquetas,” he said.
The El Zorro project is located 140km by road from the city of Copiapo in northern Chile.
Tesoro has been focusing on the coastal Cordillerra region in Chile, which hosts multiple large copper and gold mines.
Drilling adds to successful channel sampling assays
As reported last week by Small Caps, the channel sampling program was undertaken in late 2019 with 1,057 samples collected from 77 channels.
Tesoro said the results indicated a large, widespread gold-bearing system (with confirmed surface mineralisation) occurring over a total strike length of 785m, and remaining open.
Within that zone, continuous gold mineralisation has been defined over 385m of strike, varying between 60m and 80m in width.
The sampling assays at the Coquetas prospect included 97m at 0.55g/t including 2m at 3.6g/t, 45m at 0.69g/t including 3m at 3.8g/t, and 35m at 0.57g/t including 4m at 1.97g/t.