June is a bit of a news desert in the junior exploration space. In Canada, the explorers are out drilling and results will not be available for a few weeks or months. Which gave me the opportunity to reach out to Jeff Wilson, CEO of Precipitate Gold (V.PRG)
Precipitate put out a press release June 3 which detailed the results of an extensive soil sampling program focused on the Loma Cuaba target zone within its 100% owned Pueblo Grande Project located immediately adjacent to, and virtually surrounding Barrick’s world-class Pueblo Viejo gold-silver mine in the Dominican Republic. In that release Wilson is quoted as saying, “We are very pleased that our first phase of field work within this highly prospective zone has identified and refined numerous multi-element soil anomalies enriched with many of the important elements commonly associated high sulphidation epithermal mineralization. The infill soil sampling program provides us with an important layer of high-resolution data that will greatly assist with our ongoing geological interpretation of the Loma Cuaba Lithocap Zone. We look forward to augmenting this new geochemical data with pending results from our ground magnetic survey and geological mapping program as we compile critical components for plotting our initial drill targets in the months ahead.”
I reached Wilson by phone and asked how the project was going. “We’re getting into a lot more detail now,” said Wilson. “For example, our soil sampling was on 50 meter centers while prior work was done at 100 meter centers.”
Wilson is looking forward to receiving and releasing the results of the ground magnetic survey in the next few weeks. While the property has been flown magnetically, the ground mag will have higher resolution and will give a more subtle sense of the magnetic anomalies. At the same time, detailed geological mapping by high-level geos will help to identify interesting geological features that may have been overlooked or mislabelled by previous explorers.
It is all in aid of picking the targets for a drilling program expected to run between 4000 and 5000 meters. “We won’t be drilling too deep,” said Wilson. “300, maybe 400 meters at most.”
The drilling program will be designed to test the lithocap hypothesis. Is there a mineralized structure under a couple of hundred meters (or less) of barren rock?
With Barrick’s world-class Pueblo Viejo gold-silver mine pit literally less than a kilometer away from Precipitate’s claim boundary, Wilson is more than a little optimistic that there will be mineralization. Right now, the objective is to outline drill targets which will give Precipitate proof of concept.
Down the road? Obviously, Barrick would be interested in any new deposit delineated right next door to it’s already huge Pueblo Veijo mine. However, Wilson has been taking calls and having meetings with other significant gold mining companies who are equally interested.
Worth watching in the next few months.