Mountain Boy poised for September drilling

2020.08.11

Shareholders in Mountain Boy Minerals (TSX-V:MTB) are clearly expecting big things from a September drill program at American Creek. Investors bid up the stock 22.4% Monday, following an Aug. 6 announcement that geophysical crews are currently mobilizing as part of this year’s fully funded exploration program at the property, located in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle. 

According to MTB, 

The current work will provide further detailed information to finalize drill hole locations for testing 3 separate silver and gold target areas on American Creek slated to begin in early September. This year’s exploration program will include:

• Property wide LiDar survey
• Induced Polarization (IP) geophysical survey [focusing on the Wolfmoon target]
• Initial 4,000 metre drill program targeting three mineralized zones

Designed to confirm the geological model, ie., that the various mineralized occurrences are surface expressions of a large geological system, analogous to the nearby Premier District, the drills will target three areas: 

MB Silver: Drilling around the historic Mountain Boy mine will follow up the 2006 drill program, which intersected multi-kg silver values over significant widths. Th e drilling is intended to test the high-grade zone for continuity, both along strike and at depth.

Dorothy: The second target is the northern extension of the mine’s silver-bearing veins onto the recently optioned Dorothy property.  
Wolfmoon: The IP survey will focus on the third target – the recently discovered Wolfmoon zone. 

The 4,000-meter drill program will involve 20-30 holes spread across the three target areas. Like all veins systems, the intensity of the mineralization varies along the vein.

A helicopter-supported and more powerful drill rig will overcome the inability of the earlier drilling reaching down-dip on that vein. In the photo below, the mine area is just below the center of the photo. The cross section shows schematically the current understanding of the vein orientations.

“If that initial drilling demonstrates that the veins continue to depth and laterally, I think that’s enough that people are going to recognize the significance of this system,” CEO Lawrence Roulston told me during a recent interview. “It’s a typical epithermal vein system, you get shoots, hot spots and areas not so hot. So the first few holes are going to give us an indication of structure, orientation and maybe a hit in the mineralization.” 

“We’ll do a few holes near the old mine looking for extensions of the high-grade zone, and then we’re going to step out on these veins to the north. That property has been held for a couple of decades by individuals who did some great work and identified the veins at surface, but it has never been drilled.” 

Regarding Wolfmoon, Roulston referenced Ascot Resources’ Silver Hill property, about 4 km away, where a surface sample returned an off-the-charts 15 kg/tonne silver assay. A 2019 IP survey followed by drilling revealed +1 kg silver values in a drill hole. 

That setting is very similar to Wolfmoon. Mountain Boy therefore plans to use IP to target vein orientation beneath the high-grade surface samples. 

According to Roulston, “Each one of these targets is potentially a company maker. If we start to see joy on multiple targets it’s going to provide a lot of support for our district model.”

The company has consolidated a 26 square km land position, assembled a highly experienced geological team and compiled a wealth of historic information. The big game-changer came in the summer of 2018. Poring over the historical results, Roulston wondered how there came to be such high-grade mineralization so far from what had generally been seen as the source of the mineralization, the Premier district, immediately west. The district, which produced 2.5 million ounces of gold and 60 million oz of silver, is about to go back into production.

The very high grades throughout the Mountain Boy mine area extends east of American Creek to the old Terminus and Ketchum mines. Furthermore, the rock textures and style of mineralization all pointed to a nearby mineralizing source.

Closer examination of some gossanous rocks found in the course of a soil grid resulted in finding an intrusion that had never previously been mentioned. The intrusion was similar to the Premier porphyry, the driving force for mineralization in the Premier district.

Geochron analysis (dating) confirmed an Early Jurassic age, similar to the Premier porphyry and other major deposits in the Golden Triangle.

Further prospecting and mapping demonstrated that the intrusion runs along American Creek for several kilometers. Exactly how far remains to be seen, but the fact that Pretium, on their American Creek project, bordering MTB’s property to the north, has hit good results, has Roulston thinking this trend could extend all the way through to the Pretium property. 

Outlining this intrusion has been a game-changer for MTB. It is the same age as the Early Jurassic intrusion at the heart of the Premier District, the same mineralogy, similar alteration and a similar scale.

“For the first time we’re looking at this on a comprehensive basis. We’re seeing compelling evidence that what we have on the ground is similar to the other gold-silver systems in the Golden Triangle,” says Roulston. “In particular, it looks very much like the geological setting at Premier, with its high-grade silver and gold values extending over kilometers. We know there is something there of real significance. The challenge now is to demonstrate that potential in the most effective manner.”

Roulston and his team are going for high-grade in the Golden Triangle. As he states, hitting a discovery hole on any of these targets could light this thing up. 

Mountain Boy’s performance over the past three months has been nothing short of spectacular. Stockholders who owned MTB in early May and held on, have already quadrupled their capital. 

Speculative money is piling into Mountain Boy and why wouldn’t it be? It’s not everyday a company drills 5 kilograms per ton silver over 5 meters, yeah you read that right. 5Kg silver over 5 meters. While the Golden Triangle is known more so for its gold we at AOTH know it’s also one of the world’s very few billion ounce silver districts.

Mountain Boy Minerals
TSX.V:MTB, Frankfurt:M9UA
Cdn$0.60, 2020.08.11
Shares Outstanding 49,027,051m
Market cap Cdn$29.41m
MTB website

Richard (Rick) Mills
aheadoftheherd.com
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