News

VANCOUVER, B.C., July 20, 2020 – Tectonic Metals Inc. (TECT: TSX-V) (the "Company" or "Tectonic") today announced that Rotary Air Blast (“RAB”) drilling commenced on the Company’s Tibbs Gold Project (“Tibbs”), less than 35 kilometres (“km”) from Northern Star Resources Ltd.’s high-grade Pogo Gold Mine in Alaska’s Goodpaster Mining District.  Initial drilling at Tibbs is targeting expansion of the Company’s 2019 drill discovery of 6.03 grams per tonne gold (“g/t Au”) over 28.95 metres (“m”) at the Michigan Zone.  Immediately following the Tibbs drill campaign, Tectonic will launch the first drill program in over 20 years on the Company’s Seventymile Gold Project, which covers a >40 km long, underexplored greenstone belt in eastern Alaska.  Each drill program is projected to consist of approximately 2,500m of RAB drilling, with an average hole length of 100m.

Tony Reda, President & CEO, states, “Drilling creates value, yet it can also destroy value.  As part of our business model, we assess the risk versus the reward versus the cost of capital to execute a drill program before making any decision.  Given our strong treasury in conjunction with the compelling targets and the untapped potential at our Tibbs and Seventymile projects, the Tectonic team has unanimously concluded that we must move forward with two drill programs this summer.  The truth machine is currently hard at work at our Tibbs Project following up on last year’s drill intercept of roughly 6.0 g/t Au over 29.0m.  It will work through at least three exciting discovery-stage targets at Tibbs before moving to our Seventymile Project for our first-ever drill program on this underexplored greenstone belt.   Health and safety are always at the forefront of our minds, and even more so now.  We have a robust, COVID-19 mitigation plan in place to protect our employees, contractors, and the communities in which we work, and are excited to provide our shareholders exposure to two potentially game-changing drill programs.”

Tibbs  Gold Project – Stepping Out on 2019 Drill Success

The Tibbs Gold Project is located less than 35km from Northern Star Resources’ operating Pogo Mine in the Goodpaster Mining District of Alaska.   Tectonic’s first drill campaign at Tibbs in 2019 (view press release here), encountered 6.03 g/t Au over 28.95m at the Michigan Zone, one of twenty-one gold targets presently known at Tibbs that have the potential for near-surface, high-grade, lode gold mineralization. Drilling in 2020 will focus on stepping out from this highlight drill intercept at Michigan, while also testing for additional Michigan-style structures along a 3km long prospective corridor. 

• Michigan Zone: Drilling will test the strike extent of the Michigan corridor by stepping out on regular intervals to the northeast and southwest from the 2019 RAB drill fence, where all four drill holes intersected gold mineralization.  Mineralization is hosted by a northeast-trending structure, newly interpreted by Tectonic to dip steeply to the northwest. The structure has not been adequately tested along strike to date. Strongly sericite altered granodiorite hosts quartz-stibnite-arsenopyrite vein mineralization and rare visible gold.  To view the Michigan Plan Map with proposed drill collar locations, click here

• Upper and Lower Trench Zone: Drilling is planned to test “Michigan-style” mineralization observed at surface, in historic drill core and in RAB drilling completed by Tectonic in 2019 at the Upper and Lower Trench zones.  At Upper and Lower Trench, a 1,000m x 600m gold-in-soil anomaly hosts rock grab samples, some with visible gold, from trace to 135 g/t Au within a set of prominent, northeast-trending air photo lineaments.

• Wolverine Zone: The Wolverine zone is located 2.3km northwest of Michigan and is the site of the most robust soil anomaly at the Tibbs Property, with soil values ranging from trace to 1.385 g/t Au. Wolverine exhibits an identical geochemical signature to Michigan and was historically drilled in 1997 with three holes (one hole abandoned) from the same set up without returning significant gold mineralization to explain the large, robust soil anomaly. Tectonic believes the historic drill holes were collared in an area of significant down-slope soil transport, and the source of the geochemical anomaly was not tested. All three zones are interpreted to have been connected prior to post-mineralization faulting and offset.

• To view Plan Maps with proposed drill target locations for the Upper Trench, Lower Trench and Wolverine Zones click here

Seventymile Gold Project – Underexplored 40 km Long Greenstone Belt

The Seventymile Project is comprised of approximately 149,900 acres of land owned by Doyon, Limited (“Doyon”), a top tier Alaska Native Regional Corporation with more than 12.5 million acres of land in Alaska and over 20,000 shareholders. Tectonic and Doyon signed a milestone exploration and production lease agreement on Seventymile in the summer of 2018.  In April 2020, Tectonic welcomed Doyon via a strategic equity financing, becoming the Company’s single, largest shareholder and further solidifying the relationship between the two entities. 

The highly prospective, 8km Flume orogenic gold trend is located in the northwestern region of the underexplored 40km long late Paleozoic greenstone belt, which constitutes the Seventymile Property. Tectonic’s 2020 RAB drilling at Seventymile will test up to six highly prospective top-of-bedrock gold targets that coincide with gold-in-soil and geophysical anomalies within the Flume trend.  The six main targets are the Flanders, East Flanders, Deep Creek, Bonanza Creek, Flume-Bonanza Link, and Flume prospects.  In each case, drilling will test prospective shear structures occurring at major lithologic contacts and directly beneath high-tenor gold anomalies from 2019 top-of-bedrock sampling.

Seventymile Drill Targets

• To view the Seventymile Plan Maps with proposed drill target locations, click here

• Flanders: The Flanders Prospect consists of shallowly north-dipping, stacked quartz-carbonate-arsenopyrite veins localized in en-echelon tension gashes formed within basaltic rocks. Historic exploration work conducted by Central Alaska Gold Corporation (“CAGC”) in 1990 returned drill core intercepts of up to 187.9 g/t Au over 1.10m and bulldozer trench intercepts of up to 112 g/t Au over 1.07m.  Drilling was restricted entirely to the basalt rock type. 
  
  In 2019, Tectonic’s Geoprobe top-of bedrock sampling program defined a new 465m long, highly anomalous top-of-bedrock gold trend located immediately southwest of the Flanders prospect. This trend is situated entirely outside of the basalt, where historic surface shovel soil sampling failed to recover anomalous gold values due to +3m thick permafrost and organic soil cover. The new gold trend, open to the east and west, contains 14 Geoprobe assays exceeding 0.15 g/t Au, four exceeding 0.30 g/t Au, and a peak value of 2.47 g/t Au.  The zone also includes a 5 to 10m wide, 350m long high-grade corridor, which is supported by 2018 power auger soil sampling results in its western and extreme eastern areas.  The Company interprets this newly defined gold trend as a previously unrecognized, steeply south-dipping shear zone, which may represent the feeder structure to the historically drilled tension gash quartz veins.

• East Flanders: Limited historic shovel soil sampling and 2019 follow-up Geoprobe top-of-bedrock sampling indicate that gold occurrences, similar to those at the Flanders prospect, continue along trend 1.5km to the east across Deep Creek. Six highly anomalous 2019 Geoprobe samples returned values from 0.148 to 0.946 g/t Au. The anomalous geochemistry appears to be restricted to the major structural-lithologic contacts that bracket the crystal lithic tuff unit.  These structural contacts will be drilled this summer.

• Deep Creek: Tectonic’s 2019 Geoprobe program defined a new, 75m long gold anomaly carrying gold from trace to 0.106 g/t Au, 500m south of the Flanders prospect. The interval is hosted by terrigenous clastic rocks in contact with monzonite in the north and intermediate volcanic rocks in the south. Associated mercury anomalism suggests the prospect may be related to known epithermal mineralization within the Seventymile terrane. The prospect has never been drilled.

• Bonanza Creek:  The Bonanza Prospect is comprised of three types of mineralization associated with a fault-controlled stockwork vein system, which occurs at a mafic to ultramafic rock contact.  These are sulfide-poor quartz stockwork veins with visible gold, arsenopyrite-quartz stockwork veins, and quartz veins with local pyrite.  Diamond drilling by CAGC in 1990 returned values from trace to 11.49 g/t Au over 2.28m in drill hole FC1990-01 and 1.34 g/t Au over 44.2m in hole FC1990-04.
  
  Step-out drilling 150m to the east of FC1990-04 this summer will test the volcaniclastic-serpentinite high-angle fault contact beneath a 0.102 g/t Au top-of-bedrock Geoprobe sample. This new gold trend occurs at the contact between volcaniclastic and ultramafic rocks and suggests that the structure is significantly mineralized. This structure has not been previously drilled.

• Flume Bonanza Link:  Located 600m to the west of the Bonanza Creek prospect, a robust top-of-bedrock gold anomaly was defined during last summer’s Geoprobe program. Probe sampling through extensive permafrost terrain resulted in 5 highly anomalous Geoprobe samples returning values from 0.118 to 0.372 g/t Au along the interpreted basalt-serpentinite fault contact. This contact will be drill-tested this summer. 

Qualified Person

Tectonic’s disclosure of a technical or scientific nature in this press release has been reviewed, verified and approved by Eric Buitenhuis, M.Sc., P.Geo., Tectonic’s Vice President Exploration, who serves as a Qualified Person under the definition of National Instrument 43-101.

About Tectonic

Tectonic Metals Inc. is a mineral exploration company created and operated by an experienced and well-respected technical and financial team with a track record of wealth creation for shareholders.  Key members of the Tectonic team were involved with Kaminak Gold Corporation, the company that raised C$165 million to fund the acquisition, discovery and advancement of the Coffee Gold Project in the Yukon Territory through to the completion of a bankable feasibility study before selling the multi-million ounce gold project to Goldcorp Inc. (now Newmont Goldcorp) for C$520 million in 2016.

Tectonic is focused on the acquisition, exploration, discovery and development of mineral resources from district-scale projects in politically stable jurisdictions that have the potential to host world-class orebodies.

Tectonic believes that responsible mineral exploration and development can positively impact the communities in which the company lives and operates and is committed to early and ongoing community engagement, best practices in environmental stewardship and the development of a strong safety culture. Whether at home or at work, the Tectonic team is grounded on the following core values:  passion, integrity, patience, focus, perseverance, honesty, fairness, accountability, respect and a play big mindset.  The company works for its shareholders and is committed to creating value for them. 

On behalf of Tectonic Metals Inc.,

Tony Reda
President and Chief Executive Officer

For further information about Tectonic Metals Inc. or this news release, please visit our website at www.tectonicmetals.com or contact Tony Reda, President & CEO of Tectonic, at toll-free 1.888.858.9887 or by email at  info@tectonicmetals.com.

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Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements and Historical Information

Certain information in this news release constitutes forward-looking information and statements under applicable securities law. Any statements that are contained in this news release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are often identified by terms such as “may”, “should”, “anticipate”, “expect”, “intend” and similar expressions and include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the potential for mineralization at Tectonic’s projects,  planned exploration programs, and results of any future exploration activities.   The Company makes no representation or warranty regarding the accuracy or completeness of any historical data from prior exploration undertaken by others other than the company and has not taken any steps to verify, the adequacy, accuracy or completeness of the information provided herein and, under no circumstances, will be liable for any inaccuracies or omissions in any such information or data, any delays or errors in the transmission thereof, or any loss or direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages caused by reliance on this information or the risks arising from the stock market.

Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and is based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management at the date the statements are made including, among others, assumptions about future prices of gold and other metal prices, currency exchange rates and interest rates, favourable operating conditions, political stability, obtaining governmental  and other approvals and financing on time, obtaining required licenses and permits, labour stability, stability in market conditions, availability of equipment, accuracy of any mineral resources, successful resolution of disputes and anticipated costs and expenditures. Many assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of Tectonic, and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct.

Although Tectonic considers these beliefs and assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation: the Company’s ability to implement its business strategies; risks associated with mineral exploration and production; risks associated with general economic conditions; adverse industry events; marketing and transportation costs; loss of markets; volatility of commodity prices; inability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms; industry and government regulation; changes in legislation, income tax and regulatory matters; competition; currency and interest rate fluctuations; and other risks. 

Readers are further cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are placed will occur. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Although Tectonic has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Tectonic does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

[Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor it's Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.]