Tethyan Resources has announced results from soil sampling and mapping at the Kremice exploration target located in the northern part of the Suva Ruda license in Southern Serbia, which indicate potential for gold-copper porphyry mineralisation over a large area.

Highlights:

  • 1,200 metre long by up to 1,200 metre wide gold-molybdenum-copper in soils anomaly at Kremice;
  • Situated within the Suva Ruda license approximately 10 kilometres north of the Rudnitza porphyry, from which Tethyan released drilling results in 2017, the soil sampling results at Kremice show many similarities to Rudnitza, in particular a strong molybdenum anomaly that is a common characteristic of porphyry deposits;
  • Kremice is an area of ancient exploration and small-scale mining of high-grade lead-zinc-copper veins.

Tethyan has conducted detailed mapping, stream sediment and soil sampling at Kremice, which has defined a 1200 m long by 600 to 1200 m wide gold-molybdenum-copper ± zinc ± tin soil anomaly. This anomaly is west of and partly coincident with a 1000 m by 1000 m zone of manganese ± zinc in-soil depletion and weakly anomalous lead-bismuth. The geochemical signature at Kremice is indicative of potential high-level porphyry style alteration.

Detailed mapping shows that the area of gold-copper-molybdenum geochemical soil anomalism at Kremice is related to northwest and northeast trending phyllic and argillic alteration zones with sub-vertical, sheeted and stockwork quartz-pyrite veins. The andesitic volcanic and volcaniclastic host rocks are intruded by quartz diorite porphyry stocks and dykes which display weak propylitic, argillic and silica alteration. This suite of volcanic and intrusive rocks is flanked to the southeast by a large granodiorite pluton with localised areas of weak stockwork quartz-pyrite-magnetite veins.

Several historical adits have been identified during the fieldwork, spatially associated with the strongest zones of alteration in the volcanic suite and along the serpentinite-granodiorite contact.

Tethyan plans to follow-up the encouraging geochemical results and coincident zones of hydrothermal alteration with a ground magnetic survey and channel sampling of road cuts and outcrop, where possible, in order to define exploration drill targets.

Fabian Baker, President and CEO of Tethyan commented: "The Kremice area was initially identified through spectral analysis of ASTER satellite imagery which recognised an area of alteration minerals typically associated with porphyry style deposits. These results of our follow-up geology mapping and soil sampling are highly encouraging, indicating a high-level magmatic-hydrothermal system which bears many geochemical similarities to the Rudnitza porphyry in the south of the Suva Ruda license. The molybdenum anomalism in soils is particularly elevated and covers an area of more than 1 square kilometre at above 10 ppm with individual samples up to 97 ppm. We look forward to advancing this area towards a drill decision during the course of the 2018 field programme."