Garibaldi’s Golden Triangle discovery disappoints

VANCOUVER — Shares of Garibaldi Resources (TSXV: GGI; US-OTC: GGIFF) have tumbled 45% to $2.55 at the time of writing on assay results from the first four drill holes at its E&L nickel-copper property in northwestern B.C.’s Golden Triangle district.

The best reported intercept came from EL-17-4, which cut 4.8 metres of 7.2% nickel and 3.4% copper at the bottom of a 48.2-metre interval of 1.1% nickel from 108.4 metres depth. The intercept included credits in palladium, platinum, silver and gold.

The location of the drill hole relative to the property’s historical E&L nickel-copper deposit, or Garibaldi’s other drill holes, was not detailed in the press release other than it was drilled into “an untested area.” However, the company noted that drill plan maps “will be posted soon” on the company’s website.

Garibaldi’s unprecedented rise from 18¢ to a peak of $4.87 per share on Nov. 3 was driven largely by the company’s Sept. 1 and Oct. 13 announcements that all 12 drill holes on the property returned “broad sections” of nickel-bearing pentlandite, chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite.

The drill campaign was targeting “Anomaly D,” a 260-metre long geophysical conductor sitting beneath the magmatic-style E&L nickel-copper deposit. The deposit hosts a historical resource of 2.9 million indicated and inferred tonnes of 0.80% nickel and 0.62% copper, with mineralization extending to 210 metres depth, according to a B.C. Minfile report.

In the earlier press releases, Garibaldi’s first hole, EL-17-01, was reported to have hit two sulphide-bearing intervals. The first occurred at 51 metres depth and extended for 118.5 metres, whereas the second interval hit 57.5 metres of “metre-scale intervals up to 30% sulphides” at 274.5 metres depth.

While the reported sulphide intercepts were broad, the assay results proved less impressive. The first interval from EL-17-01 returned 60.5 metres of 0.54% nickel and 0.53% copper, whereas the second interval wasn’t mineralized with nickel — assays returned 4.5 metres of 0.8% copper, 1.26 grams palladium per tonne, 0.6 gram platinum per tonne and 0.6 gram gold per tonne.

Drill hole EL-17-03, which cut through the E&L deposit, provided Garibaldi with assays more in-line with drill intercepts from the 1960s. The hole returned 13.5 metres of 1.05% nickel and 1.0% copper, within a 39-metre interval of 0.91% nickel and 0.74% copper at 42 metres depth, compared to historical intercepts of 37.8 metres of 1.3% nickel and 0.79% copper, and 27.7 metres of 1.2% nickel and 0.65% copper.

Steve Regoci, Garibaldi’s president and CEO, commented in a press release that the “massive sulphides provide the trail that will lead us into what’s expected to the feeder conduit for mineralization.”

Garibaldi continues to drill at E&L despite being faced with challenging weather conditions. Each of the company’s four, high-priority targets are on razorback mountain ridges at 1,850 metres above-sea-level, spanning 6 km around glaciers and snowfields.

The latest drill hole, EL-17-14, was reported to have hit an “important new discovery,” 200 metres east of the E&L deposit. The hole entered 16.7 metres of massive sulphide at 123.8 metres depth. The sulphides are hosted within a structural zone penetrating the country rocks, rather than the gabbro intrusive that normally hosts mineralization on the property.

The company stated in the latest press release that the current drill hole, El-17-15, was paused due to a “severe winter storm,” which made working conditions unsafe. The two drill rigs, and other equipment have been winterized and that “drilling will resume as soon as weather conditions allow.”