Does This Metals Co. Have a VMS Project?
Contributed Opinion

Back in the 1960s, there was a geologist called Ken Dark who toiled as an explorationist for a big U.S. multinational called Texas Gulf Sulfur Company. His team had been conducting basic geology, including geochemical and geophysical testing of an area called Kidd-55 just north of the town of Timmins, Ontario, within a belt of known mineralization called "The Abitibi Greenstones."

Every junior explorer with ground in either the Quebec or Ontario portions of the "Abitibi" all have a teaser page in their promotional materials that talks about the 170,000,000 ounces of gold it has produced, not to mention the billions upon billions of pounds of copper-zinc-nickel-cobalt ore that has been recovered.

Old-timers with whom I worked back in the 1970s spoke of those joyous days in 1963 when reports of a find by Texas Gulf in Timmins sent speculators agog with greed and fear while the smart money grubstaked prospectors with active claims and/or staking crews that could acquire ground and quickly. There was nothing deemed amiss with the project until those staking crews tried to stake ground but to their amazement, it was all staked!

In fact, news of the discovery had been so well-protected that only insiders had been privy to the info so that they could go to all the WWI veterans who were allocated land grants by the Canadian government and buy their land for literally pennies on the dollar. You see, those poor vets had no clue that lurking beneath the surface of the frozen "mill rock" was one of the largest polymetallic base metal deposits in the history of the planet.

Texas Gulf insiders knew it, but very few others knew it, and what transpired was a watershed moment in securities law when, years later, those insiders were forced to disgorge profits they secured by withholding information deemed "material" to Texas Gulf (and other) shareholders. The old-timers' faces would light up like Christmas trees when they talked about all of the penny stocks with ground inside of five miles of the Kidd discovery that they bought in the 10-cent range at traded all the way to $5-10 per share.

To this day, I look with great fondness upon all stories that focus on one of the very few "wonders" of the geological world because in 1978, as I was in training to become a "salesman" for a prominent Toronto-based bond house, a research manager asked me to do a study of the Kidd Creek discovery. At the time, I had zero understanding of mining or geology and certainly not mining stocks but as a reader, I delved into anything and everything I could find about volcanogenic sulfide deposits (Kidd Creek was/is a monster VMS) and what I discovered was that the prime indicator or "pathfinder" minerals associated with VMS deposits were/are andesite and rhyolite. If you were conducting basic geology and were recovering samples loaded with those two highly predictive minerals, you stayed like a dog on a bone in that area.

This brings me to the point of the story. After nearly 50 years of listening to "pitches" by geologists and promoters about "VMS" targets located in the Abitibi, I have never failed to ask about the geochemical results associated with any target boasting of a "Kidd Creek signature" because if they make that claim without the presence of rhyolite and/or andesite, then it is unlikely that it is a "VMS."

All the major VMS deposits in North America, whether they be from Bathurst, New Brunswick, or Flin Flon, Manitoba, contain the rhyolite/andesite signature. In fact, it evolved into a built-in BS detector because of the inability of the presenter to react when I asked about their presence in the geochemical data. If they looked at me with a blank stare, I was out of there within seconds.

Vortex Metals

The graphic you see below is a snapshot of a project currently controlled by a recent acquisition — Vortex Metals Inc. (VMSSF:OTCMKTS;VMS:TSX;DM8:FSE) that was originally shown to me by the late David Jones, a brilliant "mine-finder" that gave me a pitch back in 2021 of two highly-prospective projects located in Oaxaca, Mexico.

Currently seeking permits, there are two VMS targets, but the one that I recall was the Riqueza Marina prospect, where a strong gravity anomaly is accompanied by a rhyolite dome.

David is convinced that Riqueza is a "VMS." It carries the potential to be a big base metal deposit and has several interesting features:

• Extensive outcrops and subcrops of high-grade mineralized (Cu-Au-Pb-Zn) gossans occur along a 3km strike length at priority West and East Gossan targets
• Multiple areas of high-grade (>0.5% Cu) surface mineralization
• Large Gravity Anomalies may represent buried massive sulfide horizons
• Substantial gravity high adjacent to a mineralized "Rhyolite Dome"

The company has a copper prospect in Chile that will be drilled later this month but with their portfolio of highly-prospective properties with such compelling geology, the current CA$7 million market cap appears cheap.

With a wealth of managerial experience, the Riqueza prospect is an interesting addition to Illapel (Chile), which I mentioned in last week's missive.

Important Disclosures:

1. As of the date of this article, officers and/or employees of Streetwise Reports LLC (including members of their household) own securities of Vortex Metals Inc.
2. Michael Ballanger: I, or members of my immediate household or family, own securities of: Vortex Metals Inc. I determined which companies would be included in this article based on my research and understanding of the sector.
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Michael Ballanger Disclosures

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