Torr Metals (TSXV:TMET) has expanded the
mineralization at its Kolos Copper-Gold Project in south-central
British Columbia.
Results from a geochemical program completed in late 2025 from the
undrilled Sonic Zone have nearly doubled the anomalous footprint
from 4.5 square kilometers to about 8 square kilometers.
A total of 1,572 samples were collected from Sonic, located adjacent
to Highway 5, part of Torr’s 100%-owned 275 km² land
position within the 332 km² Kolos Copper–Gold
Project.
The program successfully confirmed historically reported grades,
returning up to 3,090 parts per million (ppm) copper and 420
parts per billion (ppb) gold.
According to the Edmonton-based company, the results outline a
large, structurally controlled mineralized corridor measuring
4.6 km in length and up to 1.7 km in width.
“These results underscore the scale and upside exploration
potential of the Sonic Zone as a large, undrilled copper-gold
system,” said Malcolm Dorsey, president and CEO of Torr
Metals, in the Feb. 3 news release. “Nearly doubling the anomalous soil footprint to
approximately 8.0 km² is a major step forward and materially
reinforces Sonic as a high-priority target within the Kolos Project.
With excellent access, permitting underway, and an induced
polarization (IP) geophysical survey planned in 2026 to refine drill
targets, we are advancing Sonic toward drill readiness; while
maintaining our near-term focus on our fully funded Phase II drill
program of up to 6,000 metres, beginning with follow-up drilling at
our Bertha and Bertha North targets located 9.5 km to the
west.”
Among the highlights:
-
Structural Controls and High-Grade Copper in
Outcrop: Mineralization is controlled by two dominant
structural trends; a northwest-oriented trend along the margins of
a strong high-magnetic anomaly to the south, where select
2024–25 Torr rock grab samples returned up to 1.1% Cu,
and a north to northeast trend within adjoining low-magnetic
anomalies to the north and east (Figure 1, Figure 2). -
High-Level Porphyry Exposure and Fertility
Indicators: Several late-stage aplite-silica dikes up to 12
meters wide, strong epidote alteration, patchy feldspathization,
and albite overprinting potassic biotite support a long-lived,
multi-phase intrusive complex consistent with a high-level alkalic
Cu–Au porphyry system. Increasing stockwork veining and
porphyry-style alteration and mineralization are now further
substantiated by large-scale soil anomalism (Figure 3). -
Excellent Access and Along-Trend of Major Porphyry
Deposit: With direct road access to Highway 5, the Sonic Zone
is along-trend of the Ajax Cu-Au porphyry deposit, located
approximately 24 km along trend to the north-northeast. Permitting
for drilling at the Sonic Zone is underway. -
Strong Soil Geochemical Results and Ongoing Assays: Of
1,572 soil samples collected, 139 returned greater than 100 ppm
Cu, including 20 greater than 300 ppm Cu, while 48 samples
returned greater than 10 ppb Au, including 20 greater than 30 ppb
Au.
Kolos Copper-Gold Project
The 332-square-kilometer Kolos Copper-Gold Project contains Nicola
Belt geology along trend and with similar attributes to alkaline and
calc-alkaline copper ± gold ± molybdenum porphyry
mines at Copper Mountain, Highland Valley, and New Afton.
The project is adjacent to Highway 5, the Coquihalla Highway, with
year-round access and operation potential via forestry service roads
and substantial infrastructure provided by the city of Merritt
located 23 km to the south. The project contains 16 historical
copper and gold occurrences; the majority never drill-tested
including the main target areas.
Through its own exploration, Torr has vectored four main copper-gold
porphyry targets; three of them, so far, permitted for drilling.
The project lies within the Quesnel Terrane, a prolific porphyry
belt in British Columbia that is host to major deposits and
long-lived mines that within the region largely consist of Late
Triassic calc-alkaline and alkaline intrusions, including Highland
Valley (30 km to the northwest), New Afton (30 km to the north), and
Copper Mountain (106 km to the south) deposits.
As shown on the map below, there are at least nine major or mid-tier
mining companies operating within the Late Triassic-Alkaline Cu-Au
Porphyry Belt, including Taseko (Gibraltar mine), Boliden (Gjoll
project), AngloTeck (Highland Valley mine), Hudbay Minerals (Copper
Mountain mine), Imperial Metals (Mount Polley mine), Coeur (New
Afton mine), KGHM (Ajax project), and Glencore’s shuttered
Brenda mine.
In September 2023 Torr Metals announced the staking of the Kolos Copper-Gold Project totaling 13,957 hectares. The news release mentions the six
copper and gold occurrences with the highlighted grades, and the
initiation of a 2023 field program composed of up to 2,300 soil
samples as well as rock sampling, with a focus on testing potential
extensions to historical geochemical anomalies.
The field program was completed that November, and Torr announced that it collected 47 rock and 3,348 soil
samples, within about a 48 km² area. The program included the
first-ever surface geochemical and ZTEM airborne geophysical surveys
conducted over known historical copper-gold occurrences that have
never been drill-tested.
Sonic Zone discovery
In August 2024 Torr Metals made a discovery that confirmed the exploration methodology.
Final assay results from a total of 33 rock grab samples collected
during 2024 reconnaissance programs revealed additional high-grade
rock grab assays within the Kirby, Rea and Clapperton zones, as well
as a new copper-gold discovery in the northern portion of the
project that Torr termed the Sonic Zone.
Initial rock grab samples from the Sonic Zone revealed
anomalous copper and gold values in outcrop within a 1,000- by
2,000-meter footprint of strong magmatic-hydrothermal
alteration that aligns with the margins of a high magnetic
geophysical signature, identified as a potential source for a
monzodiorite intrusion.
The discovery reinforced Torr’s exploration model and
suggested the potential for another large-scale cluster of anomalies
comparable in scale to the already established Kirby, Lodi, Ace and
Rea targets to the south.
In total, Torr has identified four undrilled targets at Kolos
— Sonic, Bertha, Kirby and Lodi — with surface
geochemical anomalies covering, with the latest news release, a
combined 15.5 square kilometers.
Rick Mills, Editor/ Publisher, Ahead of the Herd:
I’m looking at Sonic results, a large, structurally controlled
mineralized corridor, 4.6km in length and up to 1.7 kilometers
width.
That’s a massive-size system with, you almost doubled the
anomalous soil footprint from the 4.5 it was to 8.0 square km. How
big is that compared to other porphyry imprints in the area and how
big is it?
Malcom Dorsey, CEO, Torr Metals:
I think in terms of comparing it to other like anomalism’s
within the area, this distribution is very comparable to what Kodiak
Copper (TSXV:KDK) was first working with. It’s larger than the
anomaly that we first defined in 2023 and 2024 around the Kirby and
Lodi occurrences, that was about six square kilometers of similar
values up to about 1,200 ppm copper and 720 ppb gold. But Sonic is
also unique just in terms of its exposure.
It was really a surprise the first time when we went up there. We
knew of the historical soil anomaly that was just off further to the
north. And what we were initially looking at was this high magnetic
anomaly, which occurs right where the north-south trend in Fanta
Fault, which is a significant control, we believe, on the porphyry
distribution regionally, but right where it starts to deviate off
towards the northeast.
So, you have major structural intersections here in the Sonic area
and where it deviates off towards the northeast, if you follow that
trend, you’ll end up at Ajax, about 24 kilometers to the
northeast.
It’s interesting just looking at those features, looking at
the fact that this is structurally complex. You’ve got three
major intersecting structures, obvious long-lived magmatic activity,
and that was really confirmed when we went up there for the first
time in 2024 after staking the area, and right away just started
seeing abundant outcrop on both sides of the forestry road that
never been sampled.
We were the first ones to sample some of that outcrop, and it came
back up to 1.1% copper in outcrop in veins that hosted chalcopyrite
mineralization together with magnetite, which speaks to proximity to
a potential source to this porphyry-style mineralization.
RM: You’ve got a piece here on
high-level porphyry exposure and fertility indicators. Could you get
into that a little bit more, please?
MD: When we look at Sonic it’s
multi-phase intrusives that are exposed at surface, highly
prospective widespread alteration envelopes.
Mostly you see a lot of albite alteration as well as silica albite
dikes, several of them, the largest one being up to 12 meters in
width, so what that speaks to is a very long-lived intrusive center
at Sonic, you’ve got these late-stage burps essentially of
silica that come up and form these albite silica dikes.
It speaks to that longevity, it speaks to the fertility of the Sonic
Zone, the fact that you have multi-phase widespread albite
alteration with overprinting of biotite phase potassic alteration,
together with those soil anomalies.
Another thing that I really like to see in terms of fertility is the
abundance of veining. So, we’re seeing strong stockwork
veining, larger-scale single-sheeted veins. That really speaks to
there is a lot of hydrothermal activity here.
We see several different phases of intrusives, everything from
monzonites to diorites to porphyritic intrusives, which really
speaks to a multi-phase intrusive complex. All that just points to
very long-lived magmatic activity and strong fertility.
As well, you’ve got that fundamental north-south trending
Fanta Fault that cuts through the middle of the Kolos Project, but
as you follow along that fault to the north it intersects this large
northwest structure that parallels the Iron Mask Batholith.
Along that northwest corridor is where we have the concentration of
Bertha to the northwest, Sonic to the southeast so it’s all
structurally linked on these large crustal-scale features but with
Sonic and Bertha they certainly are linked to the same intrusive
complex. You’ve already got this structural groundwork that
really prepares the ground ahead of time for these intrusives to
come up that exploit these weaknesses.
So. it’s a great concentrator of all these different features
in this area. In terms of the high-level porphyry exposure,
that’s kind of revealed both in the geochemistry of the soils
as well as the style of the alteration that you see. So. what we
have mostly is in the soils, we have all the pathfinder elements,
but you get more enhanced arsenic and antimony in relation to the
copper and gold mineralization.
This would suggest that you’ve got a little more of that
upper-level porphyry exposure, especially together with the fact
that you’ve got several late-stage aplite silica dikes, the
largest of which is almost 12 meters wide. Those are late stage, so
they’re really silica pulses that come up late in the process.
But the fact that there’s a number of them together with the
style of the alteration being largely albite-dominated,
over-printing a potassium-phase biotite alteration, speaks to this
being more upper-level porphyry exposure.
RM: I’m looking at these pictures, A, B,
C, D, E, and F, give us a brief description of each.
MD: If you look at B, it’s a
monzodiorite intrusive.
Some of those white quartz veins that you see are dilational, so
they’re late-stage quartz veins with some localized feldspar
potassic alteration. But you see overall within the rock outcrop
this patchy felspathic alteration within it. So that actually is
typical in the region of the Cherry Creek unit.
So Cherry Creek is thought to be an integral intrusion to
mineralization that’s seen both at New Afton as well as at
Ajax. So, it’s significant to see something that looks that
distinctive. And then if you look towards C, you get this very
pervasive, strong epidote with localized potassic alteration.
And that’s associated with this monsodiorite intrusive within
Nicola volcanic. That amount of epidote really speaks to how hot and
acidic these fluids were that were coming up. Those are the type of
fluids that you would expect to be carrying some of this
mineralization.
And then some of the other photos, D and E, really showcases the
stockwork veining within some of the intrusive host rock itself. So,
these are the types of veins that ran 0.4% up to 1.1% copper. And
there is some gold content to them as well, about 0.05 grams per
tonne gold.
So really what you need to define now with further mapping is which
styles and stages of veins would be more the gold host. But
that’s all future work that we’re going to be conducting
within the area. What it does show is the concentration of veining.
And that is what you want to see when you’re looking for the
fertility of these porphyry systems, is concentration of the veining
hosting the mineralization. And that’s what we see here.
RM: I’m kind of impressed with D and E,
looks like you dropped something on it, and it splashed everywhere.
MD: Yes, you can see there’s a couple
different orientations. So that’s part of, especially during
this next season as well, we’ll be better constraining which
veins are the type that we, and which orientations are the principal
orientations. Although we do have an idea of that already from
mapping that has been done together with the orientation of the soil
anomalism, there seems to be a strong control that’s northwest
trending, and then it meets up and trends towards the northeast.
So, you see that along the margins of that high magnetic anomaly,
that northeast trend kind of deviates away from the high magnetic
anomaly. But those would be the two principal orientations as well
that we would expect to see, and that you actually see at the Ajax
deposit to the north as well.
RM: You’ve got to be quite excited,
we’ve got Bertha and we’ve got a vector to drill that.
And now we’re looking at this Sonic and there’s a lot of
outcrop. The outcrop’s heavily mineralized in some areas. And
you’ve got all these indications of porphyry.
So how do you plan where to put a drill hole on something like
Sonic? It’s just so darn big, 8 square kilometers. What
studies are, what more do we have to do before you can say,
I’m going to put a drill hole here?
MD: The soils certainly give us strong vectors
towards where the potential cores could be, especially when
you’re looking for the gold-copper ratios within the soil.
They especially concentrate along the margins of that high magnetic
anomaly.
But the next step here is to run some IP, which we do have planned
to conduct here in 2026. So that IP will give us a much better
constraint, especially with this type of system. There’s a
number of copper anomalies, as I outlined in the map.
So, it’s really a cluster porphyry system. But as with every
cluster porphyry system, you have to find out essentially where the
main zone, the central zone is to the porphyry. So, where’s
the core? And that is really going to be defined by doing the IP.
That’ll give us a better idea on where that main core could
exist. And it’ll give us the geophysical vectors as well to
combine together with what we’ve observed at surface, as well
as the soil and rock sampling.
RM: And what this is all leading to is very
exciting two-drill programs of up to 6,000 meters. It’s going
to be an interesting year for TMET having two drill programs
going.
MD: And that’s where we have this
optionality as well. Like the Kolos Project, it’s really a
multi-target porphyry district, and those targets have never been
drilled. And then, of course, when you look at something like Sonic,
so an 8-square-kilometer soil anomaly right adjacent to Highway 5.
So, the fact that we’re really the first ones to define the
potential in that area is significant as well. And something that
we’re looking forward to testing here in 2026.
At this point we’ve defined not just the Kirby and Lodi areas,
but Sonic, and now Bertha and Bertha North. All these areas have
large-scale geochemical anomalies associated with them, together
with large-scale geophysics. So certainly, all the indicators are
there that these could be some very significant porphyry systems,
and they’ve not yet been tested.
So, we’re really the first movers in this area and we’re
fully funded for another 6,000 meters of drilling. We have plenty of
targets, plenty of space to move into, and plenty is still left that
we need to follow up on from the first phase of drilling. And
that’s really it as well, is that’s the first round of
drilling on any one of these targets.
And it’s with that first round of drilling that you really get
a better constraint on what are the controls, what are the features
that you need to look for, and how can you more effectively and
better target them moving forward. So, this not just better informs
us in terms of the Bertha area, but also our other target areas as
well. Without any drilling previously into those areas, you need
some insight, and that insight is provided by that first inaugural
drill program.
RM: Let’s just do a quick comparison
between Bertha and Sonic.
MD: In terms of the difference, I would say
within the Bertha area there’s certainly supergene-style
alteration and mineralization up onto native copper. So that is
unique, different from the Sonic area, whereas the Sonic area is
much more dominated by intrusive activity. You’re looking at
these multi-phase intrusive complexes at Sonic.
When you’re looking geologically, that’s what you have
up towards the Ajax deposit as well, is the porphyry is hosted
within the intrusive units, whereas if you look towards something
like a New Afton-style system, there’s mineralization within
some of the source intrusives, but the majority of the
mineralization has ended up with the adjacent brecciated fragmental
volcanics of the Nicola Group. So slightly different porphyry
settings, different host rocks, and that’s what we see as well
between the Bertha and the Sonic area.
RM: When we talk style of mineralization we
talk about Bertha as Afton/New Afton style, when we talk Sonic
it’s an Ajax style of mineralization.
MD: Yeah, all of this is just pointing out
geological comparisons to a certain style of alteration or
mineralization.
So, with geology, it’s an evolving process, one where you have
to keep going up there, you have to keep looking at the rocks, keep
thinking about what comparisons can be made and what’s the
significance of that. I think as we’ve looked at it further,
especially when you’re looking at New Afton as the
preservation of a large supergene system that overlies a hypogene
core, that’s not really what we’re seeing at this point
within the Sonic area. But we do see some strong comparisons that
showcase potentially something that’s a little more like an
Ajax-style system, which is also more typical of most BC porphyries,
being this intrusive-hosted, in this case, widespread albite
alteration, which is interesting as well as you have that up towards
Ajax.
RM: There are different styles of
mineralization in these porphyries. And because these porphyries are
already established, they’re already mined, when you talk
about an Afton-style or an Ajax-style, you’re not talking
about 500 million tons or 30 million tons of 2% copper.
What you’re talking about is the style of mineralization
because it’s an easy way for people, more technical people, to
understand what we’re talking about on the style of
mineralization.
What it’s saying is we have mineralization that is similar to
the type of mineralization that was found at Ajax.
MD: That’s key when you’re doing
early-stage exploration, especially in areas that have been
underexplored, you’re finding whatever evidence at the surface
or in your geochemical profiles, and you need to look around on a
regional basis to be able to say, well, what is this? Where else do
we see this style of mineralization? Because you need to start
building an exploration model. That model does have to be based on
something that is regionally comparable or that can help inform your
model.
So that’s really all it is, is that, well, we see similar
styles of alteration or mineralization at Sonic as is seen towards
the Ajax area. And same thing with us being in the Bertha area.
We’re seeing abundant native copper.
We’re seeing a large supergene-style alteration mineralizing
system. That’s more, you see that within the New Afton-style
system as well. So, it’s looking around so that that can
better inform the exploration model and maybe help lead you to where
you need to vector towards.
Conclusion
Torr Metals is poised to drill 6,000 meters at two drill targets:
Bertha and Sonic. It’s important to say that the priority is
Bertha. An initial 2,733-meter drill program at Bertha successfully confirmed the presence of a large,
structurally-controlled hydrothermal copper-gold-silver system and, importantly, defined coherent geological and geophysical
vectors toward a high-priority, untested copper–gold target to
the northeast.
Drilling delineated broad zones of anomalous copper mineralization
spatially associated with hydrothermal magnetite, brecciation, and
strong northwest-striking and north-south trending structural
controls. These zones are flanked by 68 discrete native copper
occurrences that locally define higher-grade intervals and are
closely associated with hydrothermal magnetite-epidote
veining, collectively defining a laterally extensive
hydrothermal copper system spanning greater than 350m in strike and
580m vertical depth.
According to Dorsey, this year’s field program will start with
geophysics to test the expansion potential to the northeast of the
Bertha Zone where Torr focused its initial drilling. That drilling
confirmed Bertha as the peripheral expression of a large alkalic
porphyry system with a very extensive supergene-style mineralization
alteration within it.
“It also defined those drawn vectors going towards the
northeast, so we need to expand on that with IP, see where it leads
us. And then at the same time we’ll run that IP to get deeper
penetration at the “new” Bertha North
target,” he told me in January.
“We need to see what the geometry of the underlying
chargeability anomaly is, and that will set the stage for our phase
two drill program, so we’ll follow the IP with drilling and
altogether I would say this produces basically two high-quality
shots on two vectored porphyry systems.”
At Sonic, the just-released soil sample results give Torr strong
vectors towards where the potential cores could be; we know they
concentrate along the margins of a high magnetic anomaly.
The next step is to run some IP, which will give the technical team
a much better constraint within this type of cluster porphyry
system.
“That’ll give us a better idea on where that main core
could exist. And it’ll give us the geophysical vectors to
combine together with what we’ve observed at surface, as well
as the soil and rock sampling,” Dorsey said.
A drill permit for Sonic is expected soon.
2026 is shaping up to be a very interesting year for Torr
Metals.
Torr Metals
TSXV:TMET
2026.02.03 Share
Price: Cdn$0.17
Shares Outstanding: 31.8m
Market Cap:
Cdn$14.2m
TMET website
Richard (Rick) Mills
aheadoftheherd.com
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