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Alianza Minerals (TSX-V: ANZ)(OTC: TARSF) CEO Jason Weber on Start of Phase-Two Drilling at Flagship Haldane High-Grade Silver Project in Canada’s Yukon Territory
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Alianza Minerals — Mr. Jason Weber. Jason, how are you today?
Jason Weber: Gerardo, I'm doing really well. How are you?
Gerardo Del Real: I'm doing excellent, actually. Thank you for asking. Quite a bit of a difference in the sentiment in the precious metal space, right? We have silver… just broke $28 [an ounce]. It's at $28.11, up almost 2.5%. Gold looks like it wants to run towards $1,900 [an ounce].
I can't think of a better day to announce that drilling is underway at the Haldane Silver Project in the Yukon. Of course, you're focusing on that West Fault target where you intersected 16.15 meters averaging 311 grams per tonne silver, 0.89% lead, and 1.13% zinc.
Good day for the news. Congrats on getting the program going. Give us the details, Jason.
Jason Weber: Yeah, obviously, we're really excited to get back up there drilling to build on that West Fault intersection. I think we've spent a couple of months looking at that target area and just analyzing sort of what we're dealing with — and it's pretty exciting.
That fault structure is over 650 meters long. It could be up to 1.1 kilometers in length before it merges with another fault zone that we know has got silver mineralization on it as well. It's a pretty exciting target. And there's been so little drilling on it that it really is wide open.
This program, for us, we’re just stepping out 50 meters both along strike and down-dip of the intersection through 2020 and just trying to build on it. But we're pretty excited about the potential this target has for us.
Yeah, it's a really exciting time. And then, of course, with the way the precious metals markets have been trending as of late… yeah, it's lots of fun!
Gerardo Del Real: It is lots of fun! It's lots of fun if you're able to duplicate numbers that look or resemble anything close to what you hit. And you and I joked off air that this is that point in the game where you've prepared, you've practiced, you’ve put in the work… but at the end of the day — it's either there or it's not, right?
I see that you're expecting only four holes initially. Is that something that you're willing to be flexible on depending on success or lack of on this program?
Jason Weber: Yeah, absolutely. I think that on the back of good results here, we'd be looking to expand the program for sure. One of the challenges this year is just scheduling drill crews. And with COVID still being an issue travel-wise in Canada, it has hampered the ability of bringing in different drill crews, more drill companies, into the Yukon. We're a little tight on that sort of thing so we've committed to this program for now. But we'd love to expand that, for sure, on good results.
Just looking at the result we had last year, there's so little drilling. We don't have a lot of data to go on which direction a high-grade zone might be trending. We've got some ideas; some better than educated guesses… but they still could be wrong. That's why drilling these four holes, we're trying to cover off some different possibilities as to which way these ore shoots, or potential ore shoots, could be going.
Like you touched on, it's a tough one for us because we're testing our theories, and we know very often your theory is wrong. And the more data you get, you can take it back, refine it, and say, "This is where we should be going next." It's a real test of your ego and making sure that you can take the data and you don't get too hung up on what you think might be right. Let the data tell you where to go.
Gerardo Del Real: This target remains open, as you mentioned, in all directions. But this is one of four high-priority silver-lead-zinc bearing vein targets at Haldane. Can you speak to that a bit? I know this is the focus.
The numbers that you hit prior to were phenomenal. And there's a lot of eyes seeing if you can duplicate that, as I mentioned earlier. But you do have four high-priority targets on the property. Can you talk about that a bit?
Jason Weber: Yeah, this is where it really gets fun because we drilled at Middlecoff last year as well. The results weren't quite what we were hoping. Again, we were testing for a potential ore shoot in one direction; we were wrong. There is mineralization there; it's just not the grades we were looking for.
So we've got some other ideas now learning from those drill holes. So that's Middlecoff. There was almost 25 tonnes of material mined back in the 1920s from that vein so it's a significant structure; very high grade in excess of 3,000 grams per tonne silver; a great target.
What's probably most exciting for us, though, is when we took the project on — and people who've heard me speak before have heard me say this — we really thought there was more potential or veins that were as of yet unknown. And we thought we could go do some prospecting; some soil geochem work to try to identify some other targets that may be buried vein mineralization.
And our Big Horn target was exactly that: started out as soil geochem; some really high-grade silver in soils and lead as well. And we drilled that target in 2019 and hit 125 grams per tonne silver over a few meters. Not ore-grade… but talk to anybody who works on these veins in the Keno district — that's the starting point.
Now, you've got a productive vein just like at West Fault or Middlecoff. You can start to step out on these things to find where they get wide and high-grade. And, of course, the West Fault intersection last year — where we had both tremendous width and the high grade — tells you you can do just that. Start with mineralization, the right kind of silver mineralization in a vein, and you can start stepping out and building on that.
That's what's really exciting for us is the fact that you've got four that are known. We have other geochem anomalies that we haven't even tested yet. So we could have more veins. That's what's really exciting for us.
Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! When do you anticipate the first set of assays starting to trickle back in?
Jason Weber: I'm going to guess the labs are going to be slow again this year so I figure the earliest we have samples in at the lab is two weeks from today. So that’s end of May… you're looking June into July, is my guess, before you're going to see results.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, I think we're setting up for an exciting June and July. I know you have other things going on in the portfolio. We'll talk about that at a future date. Thank you so much for the update. And good luck, Jason. Looking forward to it.
Jason Weber: Thanks, Gerardo. Great to chat with you.
Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat soon. Bye now.
Jason Weber: Bye-bye.