Further Drilling Target

Tertiary Minerals PLC
29 August 2000


 
TERTIARY ACQUIRES DRILLING TARGET FOR PLATINUM GROUP METALS, NICKEL & COPPER 
 
 
* Geology Resembles Known Finnish Platinum-Palladium Deposits 
 
* Drill target already defined 
 
A further expansion of its mineral project portfolio is announced today by
AIM-listed Tertiary Minerals plc, which is adding platinum group metals
(PGMs), nickel and copper to its existing exploration targets of zinc,
silver, tantalum and caesium. 'When the company listed only nine months ago
it had six projects ranging from grass roots prospects to one at the drilling
stage,' says Executive Chairman Mr Patrick Cheetham. 'It now has 11 projects
including four that are at, or very close to, the drilling stage.' 
 
'This progress and diversification since the company was listed in November
1999 - which also includes completion of one drilling and a number of
geochemical sampling programmes - have been achieved on private funding and
total expenditure of just £260,000,' he points out. 
 
The latest addition to Tertiary's portfolio is an exploration permit to
search for PGMs, nickel and copper at Kukkola in northern Sweden, near the
Finnish border. The permit covers a specific geophysical anomaly which the
Company intends to drill test as soon as possible.  
 
The target, an untested, coincident, electrical conductor and magnetic
anomaly at least 500m long, was defined in a 1980's exploration programme
carried out by a Swedish State prospecting company. Tertiary intends to test
the possibility that the geophysical anomaly is caused by a significant body
of pyrrhotite - a magnetic and conductive sulphide mineral commonly
associated with economic PGM-nickel-copper deposits.  
 
The anomaly is associated with the Kukkola layered mafic-ultramafic complex,
one of a number of similar complexes stretching in a belt through Finland and
Russia on the margin of the Archaean Craton. In Finland and Russia these are
known to host deposits of PGMs. Although outcrop is poor within the permit
area, the target is believed to lie in the Archaean basement immediately
below the Kukkola Complex and, as such, its setting is broadly analogous to
the 'offset' platinum mineralisation associated with the Portimo complex in
Finland which is currently being targeted by a joint venture between South
African Gold Fields Ltd and Outokumpu Oyj of Finland. 
 
The permit also covers a pipe-like body of gabbro within the Archaean
basement that may have been a 'feeder' zone to the main Kukkola Complex.
Feeder zone intrusions are attractive targets for world-class deposits of
nickel, copper and PGMs such as the intrusions at Voisey's Bay in Canada and
Russia's Norilsk. 
 
Tertiary has also applied for an exploration permit at Flinten in south
central Sweden where PGMs are a grass-roots target in a small layered
intrusive Complex. 
 
 
Further Information:      
Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman,
Tertiary Minerals plc. Tel: [phone] 

Ron Marshman or Ken Gooding,
City of London PR. Tel: [phone]