Oreterra drilling at Trek South prospect continues
2026-08-25 19:15 ET – News Release
Mr. Kevin Keough reports
ORETERRA REPORTS BORNITE, CHALCOPYRITE AND MAGNETITE MINERALIZATION WITH STRONG PORPHYRY STYLE ALTERATION IN TREK SOUTH DRILL HOLE TS26-06; DRILLING CONTINUING
Oreterra Metals Corp. has intersected strong porphyry-style alteration (epidote, garnet) with local bornite, chalcopyrite and magnetite mineralization in hole TS26-06 at the Trek South prospect, strategically located in B.C.’s Golden Triangle adjacent to the Teck-Newmont Galore Creek porphyry copper-gold project. The presence of bornite, garnet and magnetite, all of which generally form at higher temperatures, would suggest that TS26-06 is close to the source intrusion believed to centre the Trek South porphyry system. Drilling is continuing on TS26-06, and a second rig has been moved close by to help vector to the source intrusion. Drilling is expected to continue well into September. Assays are pending.
“There was real excitement in the core shack among all of us when bornite was first identified in core, along with chalcopyrite, magnetite and red garnet, and some of the strongest alteration we’ve seen to date, which is carrying on through the current drilling,” said Kevin Keough, chief executive officer. “The source intrusion for this mineralization may be deeper in this hole, or lateral to it, but we’re close. We are moving our second drill to the pad adjacent to the east of hole 6, where it will commence drilling hole 7, and we are completing a pad 200 metres south of the current hole 6, from which we will drill hole 8, which will target the most intense part of the magnetic anomaly.”
Drilling discussion
Hole TS26-06, currently at 297 metres and continuing to drill toward a target depth of 600 metres, is targeting a magnetic high anomaly which in B.C. porphyry copper-gold systems would typically represent the potassically altered, magnetically positive, higher-grade intrusive core of the Trek South porphyry system.
Exploration at Trek South has been following the UBC MDRU model for British Columbia-style porphyry copper-gold deposits, where a somewhat carrot-shaped porphyry intrusion fractures and alters overlying rocks. Drill fence A-A bisects the length of a broad, 850-metre-long swath of highly altered bedrock in which changes believed to have been caused by an underlying porphyry intrusion are clearly visible. Associated with the altered bedrock is a bull’s-eye magnetic high anomaly and a somewhat wraparound induced polarization chargeability high indicating the presence of sulphide minerals at depth.
Commencing with drill holes located at opposite ends of drill fence A-A, drilling has focused on determining where, along the alteration trend, the underlying root of the porphyry system is located. For logistical reasons, two holes (TS26-01 and TS26-02) were first drilled at the west end of drill fence A-A, and two holes (TS26-03 and TS26-05) were then drilled at its east end. All four holes encountered propylitic alteration with accompanying sulphides (pyrite, pyrrhotite plus minor chalcopyrite, molybdenite and sphalerite, as well as scheelite) in their upper reaches, potentially indicative of an alteration halo around a porphyry system. This alteration and mineralization progressively diminishes downhole, suggesting these four early drill holes are somewhat distal to the intrusive root. On the premise that the bull’s-eye magnetic anomaly represents the core of the porphyry system, drilling has progressed toward the centre of this anomaly, initially with hole TS26-04 and, now, with TS26-06.
Five holes (TS26-01/02/03/04/05) have been completed, one (TS26-06) is under way and one (TS26-07) is about to commence drilling. Two thousand twenty metres have been drilled to date of the targeted phase 1 total of 5,000 metres. Eight drill pads are currently in place. The Tahltan Nation has approved and the B.C. Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals has authorized Oreterra to leave all eight of these drill pads in place over winter, rather than the three specified in the company’s multiyear exploration permit.
Geology discussion
Drilling to date has intersected large packages of andesitic lapilli tuffs with local zones of andesitic breccia, as well as several metres of porphyritic and granodiorite dikes. Alteration in the andesite is composed of irregular zones of epidote-chlorite-calcite (that is, propylitic) plus or minus garnet and albite, with the volcanic fragments preferentially replaced. Veinlets of a similar alteration assemblage occur, frequently crosscutting the host rock with pyrite, pyrrhotite and scheelite, along with abundant calcite-only veinlets. A small Eocene granodiorite pluton that crosscuts this earlier propylitic alteration was intercepted in TS26-04, associated with disseminated pyrite and quartz-pyrite-molybdenite veins. This pluton is thought to be unrelated to the main 1.6-kilometre-wide epidote-garnet alteration zone and geophysical target at Trek South due to its small size and peripheral location.
At least nine styles of mineralized veins have been identified in drilling to date. These include epidote-garnet plus or minus calcite-quartz with bornite and chalcopyrite, various pyrrhotite-pyrite-quartz plus or minus scheelite veinlets, quartz veins with sulphides in the centreline, quartz veins with sulphides and scheelite on the selvages, chalcopyrite-bearing quartz veins, and pyrite-molybdenite veins. Pyrite and pyrrhotite are locally disseminated in the host rock up to 3 per cent, commonly associated with these sulphide veinlet swarms or strong calcite plus or minus epidote alteration. Visible molybdenite is common in the Eocene granodiorite intrusion but rare in the andesite, occurring as blebs on the selvages of quartz veins with pyrite along the vein centreline. Veinlets of quartz-pyrrhotite-pyrite plus or minus chalcopyrite are present, associated with selvages of illite plus chlorite, which crosscut the typical propylitic alteration assemblage and earlier vein sets.
Quality assurance/quality control
The drill holes discussed in this news release are being sampled from top to bottom by sawing the core lengthwise in half with a rock saw and submitting one-half of the sawn core for gold analyses by fire assay and multielement analyses by an initial four-acid digestion followed by ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry) analysis. The maximum sample length is 1.5 metres. The samples are being sent to the ALS prep facility in Terrace and laboratory in Vancouver, B.C., for analysis. A rigorous quality assurance and quality control program is in place in the form of alternating blanks, certified reference material standards, and pulp or coarse reject duplicates inserted at every 10th position in the sample series.
Qualified person
The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by John Biczok, PGeo, vice-president, exploration, for Oreterr, a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
About Oreterra Metals Corp.
Oreterra is a TSX Venture Exchange-listed mineral exploration company focused primarily on copper and gold. The company holds several wholly owned porphyry copper-gold prospects in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle, the most significant of which is the large-scale Trek South prospect, only recently revealed by glacial ice melt, located adjacent to the southeast of Teck-Newmont’s Galore Creek project. Drilling at Trek South is now under way, focused within the approximately one-by-1.6-kilometre-wide footprint of porphyry-style alteration, mineralization and copper-gold-silver plus or minus tellurium and tungsten metal values exposed and sampled in bare bedrock at surface, and testing into the underlying induced polarization, magnetic and magnetotelluric anomalies. In addition, the first significant exploration work since 2007 is planned for Oreterra’s JW porphyry prospect, located six kilometres northwest of Galore Creek.
Additional wholly owned Oreterra interests include two former producers in Nevada: the Kinkaid claims in the Walker Lane trend, covering numerous shallow gold-copper-silver workings over what is believed to be one or more porphyry centres, and the Scossa mine property in the Sleeper trend, which is a former high-grade gold producer. The company also holds a 100-per-cent interest in the large-scale Lundmark-Akow Lake Au-Cu property adjacent to the northwest of the Musselwhite mine, where drilling by the company has produced highly encouraging, broad volcanogenic massive sulphide style Au-Cu intersections. Oreterra also retains a continuing interest in several properties including a 2-per-cent net smelter royalty on McEwen Mining’s Hislop gold property in Ontario and a 2-per-cent NSR on Enduro Metals’ Newmont Lake Au-Cu-Ag property in B.C. Technical presentations on each of the Kinkaid, Scossa and Lundmark-Akow Lake properties, written by J. Biczok, PGeo, are available at the company’s website.
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