Altamira Gold (TSXV:ALTA) is one to watch. They have a land package that is approximately half the size of the Grand Canyon National Park located in a gold belt in Brazil that historically produced an estimated 7 to 10 million ounces of placer gold. I have done a couple interviews with key executives and always been left with two impressions: They have their work cut out for them -- it's good that they've done it all before!
"Part of the work that we've done is to try and follow up what I call the early geo-chemistry. The local garimpeiros went in, but they usually went in and worked in the drainages because it was easier for them to just do sluicing when you hit the water. When it went up onto the higher ground they didn't have enough water, so they actually ended up leaving a lot of the saprolite and primary mineralization behind there." Michael Bennett, President & CEO of Altamira, October 2017
The Cajueiro project is Altamira's most advanced one in Brazil. At just under 40,000 hectares, it offers them a lot of space to explore on this higher ground that has not been properly explored ever before.
What's more, the company has 43-101 compliant resource estimates for several deposits within Cajueiro. They may look small, but I'm not prepared to write them off just yet. With such a large project area, these resources help give Altamira a good place to start their next rounds of exploration.
To go past mapping or soil sampling in Brazil, you need an environmental license for exploration on the area. Altamira has the necessary permits and Mr. Bennett was careful to tell me that "Brazil has had some pretty negative publicity over the last year or two, but I will say that the mining office and the environment people are now realizing that it's important to move things along a bit faster and to give foreign companies the opportunity to come in and spend money on exploration to look for things." Altamira isn't the only one who is up for aggressive exploration and development activities, either. There has been a spike in foreign investments into the Juruena Belt recently that shows the world is watching what Altamira is up to.
The map below shows drill collars for part of Cajueiro including the large Crente project, which is south of Baldo. The map also shows the location of trenches that Altamira made in 2017 at Morro Verde, Toninho, and Baldo East. This area has good access and I wonder if a bunch of these things are connected geologically, or could at least be consolidated into a larger resource estimate for the area.
Baldo East is an extension of Baldo, which has an official resource estimate as noted above. You can see all the little white dots around the "label" Baldo -- that is drilling associated with the 30,000 ounces of gold at 3 g/t in the saprolite or oxide domain and more in the sulphides. That existing resource is okay, but there was an untested gold-in-soil anomaly and series of high grade rock samples from surface range from 3.4 to 118.4 g/t gold nearby. With screaming samples like that, things start to get interesting.
Altamira first made mention of Baldo East in a news release dated August 1, 2017. This came out the same day that I published my first interview with Alan Carter, who was President of the company at the time. There is a great team of professionals behind the company and I highly encourage you to dig in to the story more if you are not familiar with them.
The first results from Baldo East were good. The highlight of 5.8 g/t over 3 meters is a pretty good result from initial trenching, in my opinion. It would seem that they had a good sense of the local geology from previous drilling nearby at Baldo, which was borne out.
The second results from Baldo East were released August 29, 2017. They noted that assays from 4 drill holes at Baldo East were pending, but the new trenching results more than double the inferred strike length for Baldo East.
At this point, the Baldo East zone had been crossed by five trenches. The two new trenches reported on August 29th were made on either side of existing trenches -- stepping out along strike. The trench to the west was quite impressive with 3m @ 43.02 g/t gold.
Something occurred to me when I started to compare the maps of trenching results from the first two news releases. Is Baldo East connected to the original Baldo? It may be too early to say, but you have to wonder. Check the angles of the previous drilling and the shape of the resource estimate for Baldo if you're really keen to get a glimpse around the corner here.
Altamira made a third release of results from Baldo East on November 1 , 2017. Things continue to shape up nicely as the first-ever drill results confirmed that "the higher grade Baldo East zone is continuous at depth between drill holes and remains both open along strike and at depth". No mention of possible connections to Baldo itself, but there was something new: a long trench south of the first mineralized zone! This new trench encountered 3 new intervals of gold mineralization, which "suggests the presence of at least two additional and previously unknown structures" parallel to Baldo East.
Grades across the drill holes were good and the company mentioned that they were encountering hydrothermal breccia zones, which indicates they may be onto a juicy part of the system. I wonder how the core from Baldo East compares to Baldo and if there evidence of a fault separating the two, but I also don't want to get bogged down in an academic debate. There is gold at Baldo East!
Today, we got the fourth news release on Baldo East. It's been a task to put all this together in the same day, but it's good to see how far they've come. Keep in mind that Altamira has several other irons in the fire and has reported results from other projects over the last 6 months, like their surface sampling results from Crepori. They also have assays pending for 7 drill holes and new a desktop studies underway in response to "significantly increased competitor activity in the Juruena Belt". The Altamira team are leaders and others have been quick to follow.
This fourth news release on Baldo East reports results for two trenches far off to the east. One result establishes that Baldo East extends for approximately 900 meters and is still open along strike to the east. Again, they don't mention the possibility of it connecting to Baldo to the west. Establishing almost 1 kilometer of strike length for the first zone at Baldo East shows that Altamira can make significant progress quickly.
The other result here was a big surprise to me.
Trench 28 on the "previously unknown structure" parallel to Baldo East returned 29 meters of 3 g/t gold. I haven't seen anything else that wide in Altamira's trenching results and I am keen to talk with Mr. Michael Bennett to discuss the geological significance of that result.
The news release also noted that brecciated zones were encountered in trench #28, as in the drill core. The second zone at Baldo East is taking shape quickly with good grades and a strike length that approximately matches that of the first zone back in the first news release! "Trench, drill, repeat".
Allow me to point out that this recent news release did not provide results for trench 27. I point it out because it is located to the west, not far from drill collars for Baldo. Maybe that trench will start to tie Baldo East together with the resource estimate at Baldo? That's largely above my pay grade, but I will point out that trenching results can be used in 43-101 resource estimates alongside drilling results if done properly.
Again, it's important to note that Altamira has many prospects to work on. As Mr. Bennett said,
"I would like to tell everybody that it won't just be the Cajueiro project and the Crepori projects which are generating interest over the next 12 months for Altamira, that we are leading the fore in terms of exploration in the Alta Floresta gold belt. Keep an eye out for us and I think you'll see a lot of good news coming in the next few months."
In the 6 months since Altamira first announced results at Baldo East, they have shown that this prospect has legs. With the open strike, parallel structures, and potential to tie it back together with Baldo, it looks better than ever. I think trenching is a big part of this unfinished success story and I hope the market starts to see this as a template for the type of careful, methodical exploration that you can expect from Altamira.
Please note that I was not compensated by the company to prepare and distribute this promotional material. I hold shares in the company and may buy or sell at any time.
