HM Exploration Corp. has started borehole and surface time-domain electromagnetic surveys at Pilley's Island, the north-central Newfoundland property on which it holds an option from Great Atlantic Resources Corp. The work was announced by Great Atlantic on August 18, 2026.
Time-domain electromagnetics, or TDEM, involves sending an electromagnetic pulse into the ground and measuring how the resulting response decays over time. Conductive material — including the sulphide minerals that make up volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits — responds differently from surrounding rock, which is why the method is commonly used to screen for that deposit type.
According to the release, Crone Geophysics has been contracted to carry out the programme. Borehole surveys are being run in holes from the Phase One drill campaign, which HM Exploration says was completed in May 2026 at the Clifford Jones (Bull Road) Zone. Once those are finished, Crone is to move to a surface survey of roughly 13 line kilometres covering about one square kilometre around the Phase One holes.
The stated purpose is to look for extensions of known mineralised zones and for additional conductive targets nearby. HM Exploration says the data will feed into drill planning for a Phase Two programme planned for late 2026.
"Phase One drilling confirmed continuity within both the Upper and Lower lenses," said Nick Rodway, President and CEO of HM Exploration. "The borehole and surface EM data will help us evaluate their potential extensions and identify additional conductive targets that may represent massive sulphide mineralization."
Rodway, a professional geologist, is named as the qualified person who reviewed the technical content on the HM side. David Martin, VP Exploration at Great Atlantic, approved the technical information for Great Atlantic.
What the release does not contain
No assay results, intercept widths or grades from Phase One appear in the announcement, and no cost figure is given for the surveys. The release also does not set out the terms of HM Exploration's option — the payments, share issuances or expenditure commitments required for it to earn its stated 100 percent interest — nor does it say what, if anything, Great Atlantic is spending on the current work. HM Exploration is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange and refers to the ground as the Lewis Pilley's Project.
For a shareholder in Great Atlantic, that leaves the news as a work-programme update on an optioned asset being advanced by another party, rather than a change in the company's own financial or resource position. Descriptions of the property's prospectivity in the release are attributed to HM Exploration.
Background on the ground
The project sits in the Notre Dame Subzone of the Dunnage Zone, largely underlain by Ordovician submarine volcanic rocks of the Roberts Arm Group. HM Exploration notes the belt also hosts the historic Buchans mine, and describes mineralisation at Pilley's Island as bimodal-felsic VMS style, with zinc-lead-copper-silver and locally gold intersections reported historically at the 3B Zone and Clifford Jones areas.
The property has a long production history: about 450,000 tonnes of massive pyritic ore was mined from the Pilley's Island Mine-Old Mines by the Pilley's Island Pyrite Company beginning in the late 1800s, per a 1996 Geological Survey report cited in the release. HM Exploration says many of the historic showings on the property have not been systematically explored, and that older drill holes were shallow and vertically oriented, limiting what is known about mineralisation at depth. Targets flagged for future work include the 3B Zone, the Clifford Jones (Bull Road) Extension, Bouzanne Shaft, Henderson, Mansfield and Pilley's Cove.
The property is road accessible, about 25 kilometres east of Springdale, 55 kilometres southeast of Firefly Metals' Green Bay project and roughly 150 kilometres from the Pine Cove mill and port.
HM Exploration says results will be reported once the surveys and interpretation are complete. No date was given for the release of that data.
Source: Newsfile
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