New Drill Target Plans

Tertiary Minerals PLC 9 August 2000 Tertiary Minerals plc TERTIARY PLANS TO PINPOINT NEW DRILL TARGET IN SWEDEN WITHIN 'STRONG AND WELL-DEFINED' ANOMALY NEAR BOLIDEN'S OLD ENASEN GOLD-COPPER MINE - Position And Orientation Suggest New Zone Of Mineralisation, Says Chairman - Separate 'See-Through' MMI Sampling Technique Confirms Anomaly's Features AIM-listed Tertiary Minerals plc ('Tertiary') has outlined a 'strong and well defined' gold-copper anomaly by surface sampling on exploration permits which surround the now-closed Enasen mine in central Sweden from which Boliden extracted 1.7m tonnes of gold-copper ore between 1984 and 1991. The anomaly has not been fully delineated by the existing sample grid and Tertiary is planning further sampling in order to define a drill target. 'Whilst surface geochemical anomalies in Sweden can be complex due to the extensive cover of glacial material ('till') deposited during the last ice-age, this is a strong and well-defined anomaly', says Tertiary chairman Mr Patrick Cheetham. 'It is close to the existing mine but its position and orientation relative to the direction of ice movement suggests it may point to a new zone of mineralisation', he adds. The Enasen mine area is one of four target areas within Tertiary's Juniper Ridge project which were sampled in June and July. The Enasen area was targeted because of its existing gold-copper mine whereas the Kolaberget, Grundviksberget and Kroktjarn targets were defined by previous government-funded regional geochemical sampling programmes. Tertiary collected more than 700 traditional surface till samples from the four target areas and over 100 Mobile Metal Ion (MMI) samples from Enasen and Kroktjarn. Most analytical results have now been received and whilst anomalies occur on all of the target areas the most significant is at Enasen where very strong coincident gold and copper anomalies have been found in surface till within a few hundred meters of the existing open pit. This anomaly extends along the NW-SE ice direction over a number of adjacent sampling lines. Anomalous values range up to 189ppb gold and 347ppm copper and average 49ppb gold and 115ppm copper. Background values average 5ppb gold and 25ppm copper. Separate MMI samples collected at Enasen are also highly anomalous in gold, copper and silver. At the NW end of the sample grid the MMI and surface till anomalies are coincident suggesting that this is close to the source mineralisation. MMI is a technique designed to 'see through' transported glacial overburden and detect subtle anomalies directly above the bedrock source of mineralisation. Tertiary is also applying the technique, which was originally developed in Australia, at its Windfall zinc-silver project area in historic Bergslagen mining district of south-central Sweden, and results are awaited. Further Information: Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman,Tertiary Minerals plc. Tel: 01625 626203 Ron Marshman or Ken Gooding, City of London PR. Tel: 020 7628 5518