GTA Resources and Mining Inc. reported the start of its first diamond drill program at its 100% owned Burnt Pond Zinc-Silver (Zn-Ag) project located along strike from Teck Resources Limited's past-producing Duck Pond copper-zinc (Cu-Zn) mine in central Newfoundland. GTA recently completed ground geophysics, geochemistry and compilation on the 114 claim project resulting in the delineation of a number of Zn-Ag targets, two of which will be drilled starting this week. This first program will consist of roughly 800 metres (m) of drilling, testing two Zn, Ag, Cu and Pb (lead) targets. The first target area, the South Moose B, is a recent discovery of strongly altered fragmented felsic rocks with anomalous Zn, which is contiguous with an untested conductive zone. GTA recently completed a geophysical survey and defined two parallel conductors that are the primary targets. A second target area, the Burnt Pond Prospect, is a previously discovered polymetallic VMS (volcanogenic massive sulphide) horizon with historic, third party drill intersections including 25.8% Zn, 24.0% Pb, 0.8% Cu, 791.1 g/t Ag and 1.6 g/t gold (Au) over 0.37 m within a wider 12 m zone of semi-massive sulphides. The Burnt Pond Horizon can be traced with geophysics and the most northeasterly historic hole intersected the Horizon as a 50 m wide zone of altered fragmented felsic rocks with anomalous Zn, including 0.88% Zn over 15.2 m. Initial drilling on the second target area will include 200 m step-outs along strike to the northeast where there has been no previous testing. Burnt Pond is contiguous with Teck's Duck Pond Mine, which produced approximately 6 million tonnes grading approximately 3% Cu, 6% Zn, 60.0 g/t Ag and 0.09 g/t Au from two deposits. While the operation closed in 2014, Teck's infrastructure including its mill remains on site. These deposits are categorized as VMS deposits, which generally occur as clusters along linear volcanic belts. There are a number of other VMS deposits in the general area, including the world-class Buchans Mines. The GTA claims are within 5 km of the northeast corner of the mined area at Duck Pond and are underlain by the same geological package of altered felsic volcanic rocks that are common to Duck Pond.