THE FIRST ASSAY
Monday Drill Digest
TSX · TSX-V · CSE · NYSE-A · Nasdaq — August 17, 2026 — 5 companies · 56 qualifying holes · 3 jurisdictions
Monday's tape was Canada-heavy, with five companies clearing the screen across 56 intercepts. Banyan Gold owns the headline — 14.2 m of 13.03 g/t Au including a metre at 142.7 g/t, pushed into ground the AurMac resource model currently calls unmineralized. But the best value per dollar sits elsewhere: Thunder Gold's 228.5 m at 0.557 g/t on a C$44M market cap returns 2.92× GT per C$M, twelve times Banyan's ratio. CanAlaska posted the day's only Exceptional rating — 5.4 m at 1.48% U₃O₈, 350 m northeast of the Pike Zone, with chemical assays now confirming the earlier probe numbers.
⚑ HOLE OF THE DAY
Thunder Gold TGOL TSX-V · C$43.6M · Tower Mountain — Bench Target, Canada (Ontario)
▾ Deep · from 209.5 m | Infill · resource conversion | Canada · stable | Porphyry-Au
TM21-107X: 228.5 m of 0.557 g/t Au* from 209.5 m
incl. 18.2 m of 1.665 g/t Au from 419.8 m
GT
127.3 g/t·m
GREAT
AuEq·m
127.3
Au basis
GT/MCap
2.92×
(Au)
TM21-107X is the extension of a hole Thunder Gold abandoned in mineralization in 2021, and it came back roughly 60% richer over essentially the same downhole length. Combined with the parent hole the intercept is 340.4 m at 0.530 g/t Au. This is bulk-tonnage grade, not bonanza — at 0.56 g/t the economics live or die on strip ratio and throughput, and the hole starts 209.5 m down, though it sits entirely inside the 2026 MRE optimized pit shell. What earns it the slot is arithmetic: 2.92× GT per C$M is an order of magnitude above anything else on the sheet, and Banyan's far louder hole scores 0.24×. Grades are reported increasing at depth and the zone is open; two rigs are turning 24/7 with infill drilling due to finish end-September. True width was not determined — the hole failed to transect the target — so 228.5 m is a drilled length, not a thickness.
GT/MCAP SPOTLIGHT — TOP 5
Au, Cu and U₃O₈ metrics sit on different price and unit bases — read within a commodity, not across.
Ticker | Hole | Metal | GT/MCap |
|---|---|---|---|
TGOL | TM21-107X ★ HOTD | Au | 2.92× |
ALEX | ANRD016 ✓ ⚠ | Cu | 0.45× |
BYN | AX-26-874 ◉ ✓ | Au | 0.24× |
GORO | 426014 ✓ | AuEq | 0.23× |
CVV | WMA101-02 | U₃O₈ | 0.10× |
Thunder Gold takes the top ratio and it isn't close — the next four sit between 0.10× and 0.45×. Alpha Exploration is the best of the rest on 67 m of 0.38% Cu, though that number carries an Eritrea discount no screen prices in.
TODAY'S QUALIFYING INTERCEPTS — TOP 11 OF 56
Rating | Company | Metal | Hole | m | Grade | GT | AuEq·m | GT/MCap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Great | Banyan Gold BYN | Au | AX-26-874 ✓ | 14.2 ◉ | 13.03 g/t | 185.0 | 185.0 | 0.24 |
Great | Banyan Gold BYN | Au | AX-26-874 ✓ | 1.0 ◉ | 142.70 g/t | 142.7 | 142.7 | 0.18 |
Great ★ | Thunder Gold TGOL | Au | TM21-107X* | 228.5 | 0.557 g/t | 127.3 | 127.3 | 2.92 |
Great | Goldgroup GORO | AuEq | 426014 ✓ | 2.55 | 25.85 g/t | 65.9 | 65.9 | 0.23 |
Great | Goldgroup GORO | AuEq | 426017 ✓ | 3.26 | 18.75 g/t | 61.1 | 61.1 | 0.21 |
Great | Goldgroup GORO | AuEq | 525086 ✓ | 1.92 | 26.78 g/t | 51.4 | 51.4 | 0.18 |
Good | Thunder Gold TGOL | Au | TM21-107X* | 101.0 | 0.445 g/t | 44.9 | 44.9 | 1.03 |
Good | Banyan Gold BYN | Au | AX-26-874 ✓ | 54.5 ◉ | 0.80 g/t | 43.6 | 43.6 | 0.06 |
Good | Thunder Gold TGOL | Au | TM21-107X* | 18.2 | 1.665 g/t | 30.3 | 30.3 | 0.70 |
Good | Alpha Expl. ALEX | Cu | ANRD016 ✓ ⚠ | 67.0 | 0.38 % | 25.5 | 40.6 | 0.45 |
Exceptional | CanAlaska CVV | U₃O₈ | WMA101-02* | 5.4 | 1.48 % | 7.99 | 162.7 | 0.10 |
+45 not shown — mostly Goldgroup Don David vein splits and Banyan Powerline sub-intervals. 16 near-misses, led by Premier American Uranium's RT26-085 (1.07 m @ 0.135% eU₃O₈). PUR's Kaycee holes are ISR roll fronts screened industry-wide on %·ft grade-thickness (RT26-085 = 0.47 %·ft, a normal ISR intercept), so the metric U₃O₈ threshold used here understates them.
✓ true width stated · * drilled width, TW not determined · ◉ from ≤200 m · ⚠ high jurisdiction risk
GT thresholds — Au: Good >10, Great >50, Exceptional >200 g/t·m · Cu: Good >20, Great >40, Exceptional >150 %·m · U₃O₈: Good >0.15, Great >0.75, Exceptional >5 %·m
AuEq: Au $3,200/oz · Ag $33/oz · Cu $13,700/t · U₃O₈ $95/lb. Goldgroup AuEq is the issuer's own Au+Ag calculation at 70.07:1 — silver-dominant, not comparable to Au-unit rows.
NOT SCREENED
SAGA Metals (SAGA · TSX-V) — Radar Critical Minerals, Labrador, Canada. Holes R-0061 to R-0063 returned up to 47.36% Fe₂O₃, 6.73% TiO₂ and 0.353% V₂O₅. Fe-Ti-V — no GT threshold defined in the current framework and no AuEq conversion for any of the three. Market cap not retrieved.
Sendero Resources (SEND · TSX-V) — Peñas Negras, Vicuña Belt, Argentina (moderate risk). Reconnaissance diamond drilling reported as confirming the geological model and identifying geochemical vectors; no economic intercept in the release headline. The article body could not be read this run — the JMN URL exceeds the fetch length limit, no browser was connected, and the company's own site has not posted the release. Flagged for manual review.
THE FIRST ASSAY — thefirstassay.com
Au $3,200/oz · Ag $33/oz · Cu $13,700/t · U₃O₈ $95/lb. GT/MCap uses C$ market cap at August 17, 2026. Not investment advice.
Archived to Google Sheets. Master archive not updated this run — stale since Jul 15, needs a manual merge.