TomaGold shares jump 140% on Monster drill hole

Montreal-based TomaGold (LOT-V) has garnered a lot of attention following preliminary high-grade assay results on its Monster Lake gold property outside the town of  Chibougamau, Que.

TomaGold shares closed the April 4 trading session up 140%, or 49¢ to 84¢ following the announcement, on a 1.4-million-unit trade volume that dwarfed the company’s daily average of 20,000 shares.

The excitement was over a single hole collared at zone 52, which lies on a gold-bearing corridor that has been traced over more than 4 km. 

Hole 12-60 cut 6 metres grading 238 grams gold per tonne starting from 69 metres depth. The results are part of an 18-hole program designed to test the northern extension of zone 52. The mineralization is related to dark, quartz-sulphide veins within an altered shear zone, ranging from 3- to 10-metre widths in basaltic units.

“This is a major discovery in terms of both grade and continuity,” president and chief executive officer David Grondin comments. “The intersection has strong exploration potential, as it is open along strike and at depth.”

TomaGold acquired Monster Lake in a deal with Stellar Pacific Ventures (SPX-V) in May 2011 for US$3.3 million paid through 22 million shares issued at 15¢. The acquisition included three properties in Quebec totalling 143 mineral claims surrounding Chibougamau and Val-d’Or. 

Stellar Pacific shares also traded way above typical volume following the announcement, with 4.6 million shares changing hands en route to a 16% price increase and an 11¢ close.

According to historic drill results from the Société québécoise d’exploration minière (Soquem), there have been a minimum of 10 gold showings with intersections over 4 grams gold, at lengths reaching 5 metres at Monster Lake. 

Soquem conducted 20,000 metres of drilling on the site between 1984 and 1995, and excavated several trenches along a 4-km-long mineralized corridor. 

Monster Lake has three established targets that include: Eratix, zone 3, zone 4 and zone 52. Drilling has been conducted on the zones at 50-metre line spacing, but several intersections remain open along strike and at depth.

 Stellar Pacific drilled 46 holes in the area over the past two years. Highlights from its program include 2 metres of 76.53 grams gold starting from 49 metres, 2 metres of 8.26 grams gold from 53 metres, 3 metres of 7.22 grams gold from 96 metres and 4 metres of 3.19 grams gold from 79 metres.

TomaGold is continuing Stellar Pacific’s definition-drilling program, and following up on stripping and channel sampling completed during the last half of 2011. 

TomaGold transitioned from the green-energy sector last year — previously having been named Carbon2Green — where it was working on a Jatropha project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. TomaGold has 5.9 million shares outstanding, and a presstime share price of 38¢ and market cap of US$2.2 million.