Tinka Resources Ltd. announced additional results from the company's ongoing drill campaign at the Ayawilca project located in west-central Peru. The company has, for the past year, been drill testing the southernmost of a series of large 3-D inversion, induced polarization (IP) anomalies that span a distance of 1,200 metres east-west; the anomalies remain open to the east. So far, twelve holes have tested the favorable horizon that lies beneath the Gollyar sandstones - the Gollyar is host to the silver resource found at the company's Colquipucro project located 1.5 kilometres to the north.

The underlying favorable host rock consists of sedimentary breccias, greywacke, siltstone and calcareous units believed to be part of the Oyon formation. So far, ten of the twelve holes intercepted either semi-massive or massive sulphides consisting of pyrite, pyrrhotite and sphalerite with lesser galena, chalcopyrite and arsenopyrite. Hole A12-08 contains the best intercepts of zinc mineralization found thus far.

Several intervals of massive sulphide were intercepted, ranging from a few metres to 10's of metres in thickness, interspersed with zones of semi-massive and disseminated sulphides. The mineralized zones contain hematite and magnetite with siderite (an iron carbonate) and argillic alteration. Surrounding the mineralization is a wide envelope of propylitic alteration dominated by chlorite.

Holes A12-05 and A12-06, drilled to the north of the southernmost IP anomaly, intercepted mostly propylitic alteration with localized intercepts of mineralization: hole A12-05 intercepted several narrower zones (2 to 4 metres @ 1% to 3% Zn) throughout the length of the hole, but hole A12-06 yielded only anomalous values in Zn. Hole A12-07, drilled vertically from the same site as A12-06, encountered stronger alteration and a 10 metre section of massive pyrrhotite at the base of the Oyon, immediately above the basement metamorphic rocks. The geometry of and controls to the mineralization are not yet fully understood, but a series of intersecting fault structures that underlie Ayawilca are believed to be the source conduits.

The 3-D inversion anomalies follow these structures closely. The irregular nature of this replacement style mineralization hampers any meaningful interpretation of the strike, dip and true thickness of the zone(s) intercepted in these and previously reported drill holes at this time. The company has drilled from 7 of 8 permitted sites along 4 section lines spaced 200 metres apart, spanning a distance of 600 metres.

The Company has filed an amendment to the existing drill permit for a further 84 drill platforms covering the anomalies identified by geophysics. The platform 200 metres east of A12-08 is located along the same projected east-west structure and IP anomaly that hosts the strongly mineralized zone in this hole; this drill site has yet to be tested. In addition to completing this phase of drilling in the early part this year, further IP surveying will be conducted east of the area tested in 2012, where the IP anomalies remain open.

Drilling will resume after the Christmas break in the second week of January, continuing to explore Ayawilca and infill drilling at the Colquipucro (Zone 1) silver resource. All diamond drilling has been performed using HQ diameter drill rods, reducing to NQ diameter if required. All core has been logged and split on site under the supervision of Tinka geologists with sampling done on nominal two metre intervals.

All the samples have been transported by Company staff to SGS Laboratories in Lima, Peru for ICP analyses using multi-acid digestion. Analytical standards and blanks were routinely introduced in the sample suites sent to the laboratory, and samples that exceeded their respective threshold levels for Ag, Zn and Pb were re-assayed by specific atomic absorption techniques.