Categories: Base Metals / Precious Metals
Topics: General Base Metals / General Precious Metals

Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN)(OTC: HANNF) CEO Michael Hudson on Game Changing Radiometric Dating Confirming Miocene Porphyry Belt at the Previsto Copper-Gold Project

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today, live from the field, is the CEO of Hannan Metals, Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, it's great to have you back on. How are you, sir?

Michael Hudson: I am great. Australia's coming out of lockdown and I'm very happy to be back with boots on the ground with minimal restrictions.

Gerardo Del Real: Congratulations. Obviously, literally, hard-fought freedom. So I'm happy for you. I'm happy for Australia, congrats on that front. And Mike, I have to say congrats on this morning's news. The last time you and I spoke in September, I described the news as game changing, and I also described it as news at the market did not understand or appreciate.

And here we are on November the fourth, the day that we're recording this, and you had more news today, that again I believe, is game changing. And so I will read the headline and then I'll state my disclaimer up front and say I'm not a geologist, so I'll let you explain it to me, but it seems like game changing news to me. And the headline reads:

 

Hannan Radiometric Dating Confirms Miocene Porphyry Belt at the Previsto Copper-Gold Project in Peru.

 

For those of us that are not technically inclined, can you please explain to the audience why this is so important? And then let me note that this is on the hundred percent owned Previsto project in Peru. This falls outside of the JOGMEC joint venture. And so again, I think it's game changing news, am I wrong? I don't want to be hyperbolic, but it seemed that way to me.

Michael Hudson: It is game changing news without a doubt. It's game changing at an industry level, it's game changing at a metallogenic understanding of South America level and it's game changing for Hannan, the little company that has found a lot of copper already at very early stages. And it puts it into context in a way that you could only dream about.

So what have we done? We've taken 10 samples for radiometric dating and the science around radiometric dating is very well established now. And we take a mineral called zircon and we measure the amount of uranium and lead in those zircons, at very minute fractions. And because of the wonders of zircon, it doesn't suck up lead when it's forming. So if the lead's there, it's become a product of radioactive decay of uranium just naturally, and that happens everywhere in every rock. We know the timeframes around decay of radioactive daughter products, and we can measure the time pretty specifically.

So you can see, we put out a whole range of ranges from 12 million to 20 million years plus or minus 0.2 million years. The detail doesn't matter there, but I just thought I'd go into the science a little bit. But the key point is, that age range is what we call the Miocene. It's a moment in time ago in geological timescale, it's very recent relatively, and that time band is what forms the major deposits in Peru. The major porphyry copper deposits, the major epithermal deposits, Peru is the second largest copper producer on earth and the majority of that copper comes from these Miocene aged intrusions that form that copper, and the gold I should say, as well.

So what is special about this is that we are working way east, 120 kilometers east of that specific band of rocks is Miocene aged, where majority of these metals are sourced for the world. We've rewritten the geological textbook in a way here, that shouldn't be these aged rocks out there. And it's been not looked at really ever before with this sort of consistency.

And the best analog is Bajo de la Alumbrera which is a large copper mine that was found by the Lundins many years ago. It was 120 kilometers in board from the major arc, the volcanic arc, where most of the mineralization is formed in Argentina in a similar way, if you chase the Andean chain up north to Peru. And that rewrote the geological textbook for Argentina, and there's some sort of transfer structures or cross structures that mean that the subduction and the way that tectonic fabric has evolved in the Andes, which we don't really understand that well, means that these younger intrusions can form way in board. In this case, into the high jungle areas of Peru, that we never understood before.

So we've got a huge land position, more than a thousand square kilometers. We've got the dominant position. We've taken stream sediment samples and bulk leach extractable samples of the whole area. We've got early stage magnetics from Petroperu. So we've staked the bejeebus out of it. Then we look forward to your translation on that, and we've got the advantage. So that that's a long description, but it is putting all the copper and gold that we found to date. You know, we're getting samples, early stage samples up to 25% copper, seven intrusive centers that we found and put them all into context as the same age that we see further west that has been so productive for the globe.

Gerardo Del Real: Now, correct me if I'm wrong. Right. But I understand that you took eight porphyry samples within an area of 140 by 50 kilometers. Is that accurate Mike?

Michael Hudson: Yeah. We took 10 samples, which came back as a Miocene age, two came back as early intrusions, which is normal to see also, right? So that's not unexpected, but 80% of them were Miocene age. Now we were just hoping for one, we've got eight, and they were just representative porphyry intrusions with all with the lower, low grade leached, copper, and gold that we'd sampled. And we put those in over the larger area. A lot of them focused on that previous De Norte area, which is more advanced and we got a good stress, so on any scientific means and then the eventual exploration outcome, that's a very meaningful set of data.

Gerardo Del Real: Phenomenal work. Congratulations again, thank you for the context. Is there anything else that you'd like to add? What can shareholders expect between now and year end?

Michael Hudson: Well, the key point here that we've just started to get the ground granted. So we have started to apply for these areas about a year ago, and now I think we've got 13 and a half thousand hectares granted, which allows us to go and work with the local communities in much more detail, bringing them along as we have in, in San Martin. If they want us there, we'll be there. If they don't want us there, we won't be there. So we've got to really work very hard to earn that credibility. And that's what we're doing now. So that's a key aspect and we'll work with the local communities and next steps will be to do a lot more advanced exploration. When we develop plans with the local communities and fly very detailed airborne magnetics, and run detailed mapping and soil sampling that we really focus in on this opportunity. So it's an exciting time alone on this project

Gerardo Del Real: And I'm assuming that 2022 is the year that we'll see the drills turn after all of this excellent field work, correct?

Michael Hudson: In San Martin, we'll have the drills turning and that's taken a year to permit a drill program there. And we hope we'll be drilling there at the end of Q1, start of Q2. In terms of drilling on this project, we will start that process very soon to permit, it's just a little too early to know where to put drill rigs yet until we do those soils and mapping work over the coming months.

Gerardo Del Real: Mike, thank you so much. I'll let you get back to it. Appreciate the time and the update as always.

Michael Hudson: Thank you Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Be safe out there.

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