Junior targets Guiana shield for PGMs

Junior Guyana Goldfields (YGI-V) has widened the global search for platinum group metals by picking up four properties in the Guiana shield of South America.

The junior can earn 100% interests in the Badidku Mountain, Tantom Hills, Ireng and Upper Takatu properties. Combined, the properties cover 223 sq. km of the Precambrian Shield, where it underlies the Guyanese countryside.

Although the shield, which also covers parts of Venezuela, Surinam, French Guiana and Brazil, is famous for its gold deposits, occurrences of potartite (a palladium-mercury alloy) and native platinum have been reported as far back as the 1920s. More recently, Guyanese government geologists detected elevated values of platinum in soils overlying mafic intrusions occuring at the Badidku Mountain and Tantom Hills properties.

Both are in the southern part of the country and have returned up to 200 parts per billion platinum. The coincident mafic-norite intrusion at Badidku Mountain measures 7 km long by 1.5 km wide, whereas the one at Tantom Hill covers an area of 2.4 sq. km.

Potartite was first reported from the Ireng area in 1958, with five other showings of the metal having been found since. Large, coarse-grained gabbroic sills unconformably overlie a felsic pyroclastic metavolcanic sequence and can be spotted with sulphides near their base.

The nearby Upper Takatu property includes several plateaus flanking the eastern margin of the Pakaraima mountains. Two alluvial showings of potartite have been reported, and the same suite of mafic sills, plus dykes, found at Ireng separate them.

Guyana Goldfields notes that the region in which Upper Takatu is located is where the most deeply eroded portion of the Roraima formation occurs. That formation is believed to be the source of much of the alluvial gold and diamonds mined in the country, suggesting that the company will not restrict itself to platinum and palladium.

Both the Ireng and Upper Takatu properties are in central Guyana.

Guyana Goldfields’ portfolio includes the Peters and Aurora gold projects in Guyana, plus an option for half the Coronation Gulf diamond property in Nunavut. To earn its interest in that property, the company must pay $150,000 and issue 3 million shares to MSA Capital (msa-v), as well as spend $1.5 million on exploration over three years.

To acquire the platinum-palladium properties, Guyana Golfields must reimburse the vendor for its costs (estimated at US$25,000) and pay US$12,500 in each of the next two years. As many as 100,000 treasury shares must be printed as well.