Tarsis Resources Ltd. ("Tarsis" and "the Company") has been formally notified that Driven Capital Corp. ("Driven") will not be continuing with its option to explore Tarsis' White River property, located in southwestern Yukon.
Tarsis plans to assimilate the data collected by Driven and determine the most effective means to advance the project. The Company thanks Driven for its efforts and wishes the team future success.
During 2012, Driven completed a first phase diamond drill program comprising 1,327 meters in seven holes and spent approximately $833,000 at White River. This was the first time that the project had been drilled. While gold mineralization was detected in all holes, the grades and thicknesses encountered did not meet Driven's expectations. Driven also cited the continuing difficult market conditions for junior mineral exploration companies and the challenging financing environment. Drilling primarily targeted the HG Zone with 5 holes testing a 275 m portion of the 1,000 m long target while single holes were located at the MB and Cool Zones. No drilling was conducted at the MS2 Showing.
The White River 2012 Exploration Program
In total, 1,327 meters were drilled in seven holes during the 2012 exploration season. All holes targeted structurally associated gold-copper-silver mineralization in localized portions of the HG, Cool and MB zones.
Drill core from each hole displays numerous multi-phase veins, breccia and shear zones containing varying combinations of secondary calcite-arsenopyrite-chalcopyrite-pyrite supporting previous interpretations of extensive hydrothermal activity. These structural zones range in thickness from 0.94 to 12.95 meters and as previously reported, a number of these zones have no surface expression.
Moderately elevated gold values were identified in all holes with assays ranging from 0.42 to 2.78 g/t gold over intervals ranging from 0.76 to 1.47 meters. The elevated gold intervals are generally associated with strongly anomalous arsenic (greater than 10,000 ppm in some samples) and bismuth values. Core recovery was poor in a number of intervals due to the high degree of fracturing, strong surface oxidation/weathering and presence of clay-rich gouge.
At the MS2 Showing, two select prospecting samples were collected from an unsampled hand trench excavated in 2011. Each specimen comprises locally weathering disseminated to semi-massive arsenopyrite in silicified metasediments interpreted to be part of the Yukon-Tanana assemblage underlying the stratigraphic sequence hosting the HG, Cool and MB zones. The two samples collected returned 18.90 and 3.25 g/t gold and both samples have strongly anomalous accessory arsenic, bismuth and tellurium. The MS2 Showing is located approximately 500 meters south of the HG Zone in an alpine plateau coincident with a well-defined Induced Polarization chargeability anomaly that remains untested by diamond drilling.
In addition, two main areas of arsenic-copper±gold soil geochemical response previously outlined at the SouthWest and North Anomalies require further exploration. Soil sample sites within the SouthWest Anomaly returned gold values ranging from below detection to 1.67 g/t within a well-defined northeasterly trend.