Mariana Resources (LON:MARL) has appointed Canadian Randy Turner to the board as a non-executive director ahead of its listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).
The company said the appointment was in line with its strategy of bolstering its Canadian exposure ahead of the listing.
Turner has over forty years of experience in the Canadian and international mineral exploration, financing and business arena.
He currently serves as president and chief executive of Canadian focused gold and silver explorer Silver Quest Resources (TSX.V: SQI).
The highlights of his career include guiding Winspear Diamonds from the discovery of the Snap Lake diamond deposit in northern Canada through to its sale to De Beers Canada Mining for C$305 million in 2000.
Prior to that, Turner was involved in the development and sale of the McIlvenna Bay copper/zinc deposit in Saskatchewan, Canada as president of Trimin Resources.
Mariana said that Turner’s specific Canadian experience will be invaluable to the company, which is currently working on defining a maiden resource at its flagship Las Calandrias gold discovery in Argentina.
“Randy Turner...(has) a solid track record of advancing exploration and development companies and a wealth of capital raising experience in the Canadian markets,” said chairman of Mariana John Horsburgh.
Previous intersections at Calandria Sur have included 68 metres grading 2.4 grammes per tonne (g/t) gold and 24 g/t silver from 74 metres and 106 metres grading 1.6 g/t gold and 27 g/t silver from 3 metres.
In late September, broker FinnCap said that following a strong drilling run started earlier that month the stock met its valuation of 41 pence, which it said was due to the market anticipating exploration success at the Las Calandrias project.
“At this early stage of the drill programme, we think there is greater risk being out of the stock than in it,” said finnCap.
Apart from Las Calandrias, Mariana is also advancing other projects in Argentina, including the Sierra Blanca joint venture with drilling of silver-gold targets planned for Q1 2011 and Los Amigos, where drill target definition work is progressing.