Tinka Update

I'm going to do a different spin on the post, initially focusing on the results and then look at some areas that have been under-drilled to see where Tinka can go to add some tonnes to and/or improve the quality (category) of their resources.

Summary

• Some good infill holes (A17-085 and 096) in the core of the system
• System is getting weaker to the east (A17-093) and to the SE (A17-094).
• Narrow, albeit high-grade zones drilled to the east of the West Ayawilca resource (A17-083 and 085)
• A few holes were drilled in the Chaucha, Zone 3 and Valley targets, but to date, no significant mineralization was discovered. However, early days.... 

Results

We are now looking at a mature exploration project. Tinka are now drilling the periphery of the South Ayawilca system, so the mineralization is now narrow and deep.

Blue = Sept PR; Red = Oct 2nd PR; yellow = result pending

Here are some sections

Hole A17-087 - SW end of the South Ayawilca Deposit

We can see that mineralization is dying out to the SW.

A17-071 (left) SE extent of mineralization

Mineralization dying out to the NE, but there are a few gaps. Hole A15-041 (to the right) hit multiple zones of moderate zinc mineralization.

The effect that this drilling has had on my officially bad resources is:

Full breakdown of ZnEq resources

We actually see just a slight increase in tonnes, but a decrease in grade. This is due to the slightly lower average grade due to all of the different cut-off limits.

This may sound negative, but essentially Tinka have been drilling at South Ayawilca all year, and have defined a new, deposit at Ayawilca. It will be interesting to see when a new technical report is released.

Opportunities

However, I have a question: Where are Tinka going to drill now? The drilling to date seems to have closed off the South Ayawilca deposit, where are they going to generate future intercepts and grow the resource.

There are 3 areas where they can focus:

1. Infill drilling - designed to increase the confidence of the resource (increase the amount of M&I resources and reduce the amount of Inferred)
2. Expansion - drill around the edges and between known mineralized zones.
3. Green-fields - drilling of new targets

Each of these have a different risk vs reward levels, and I've spent a few days compiling as much of the drilling data as possible from technical reports and old press releases.

They have already started drilling some of the pother regional targets, but unfortunately, so far the results haven't been very positive, but we need to remember that they have only drilled 6-7 holes on them, so it is early days.

So, I will focus on the first two. Where are there: 

• Under-drilled areas
• Where some intercepts haven't been followed up on.

NOTE: there may be reasons certain areas haven't been explored (e.g. access issues, topography, hydrology etc.). I'm going to ignore these in this post as I'm not intimately familiar with the project.  

Unfortunately, I'm lazy. Fortunately, Leapfrog can all of the hard work for me. I drew a slice through the project, along the main zinc horizon.




I got leapfrog to create 50m and 100m (radii) buffers around each drill-hole.

Pink = under explored areas

I always do this as it shows me very quickly where there are un- and under-explored areas of a project, and as a simple geologist, I like to put holes in areas where they have a good change of getting high-grade zinc mineralization, like here:

Gaaaaaaapppp

That area is ripe for reaming. This is a perfect area for dumb exploration, simply whack a hole between 'em and you have an easy win! The area to the right of hole A12-008 could also do with a few holes as well, you'll get some decent grades for your PRs there.

However, this raises and interesting question for Tinka. Do they focus on drilling the known mineralization or start exploring the property for more deposits?

If they focus on drilling to improve the confidence in future resource calculations or keep looking for new deposits, and maybe even the BMF?