The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Geophysical surveys aim to refine Peanut Lake drill targets North of 60 Mining News – September 4, 2020
This copper-rich rock was discovered in a pit excavated to provide aggregate for road work on Fortune Minerals' Nico cobalt-gold-bismuth-copper project in Northwest Territories.
Fortune Minerals Ltd. Sept. 3 announced the start of a geophysical program to further delineate expansion drill targets east of the company's Nico gold-cobalt-bismuth-copper deposit in Canada's Northwest Territories.
Nico currently hosts 33.1 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.11% (82 million pounds) cobalt, 0.14% (110 million lb) bismuth, 0.04% (27 million lb) copper and 1.03 grams per metric ton (1.1 million ounces) gold.
Fortune has evidence that this deposit has been displaced by faults and is having induced polarization and ground magnetometer geophysical surveys carried out over five previously identified geophysical anomalies to refine drill targets along the eastern strike projection of the target.
The primary target is Peanut Lake, a 1,200-meter-wide coincident magnetic, gravity and electrical resistivity geophysical anomalies similar to the geophysical response associated with the main Nico deposit.
These geophysical anomalies, the strongest yet discovered on the Nico property, were identified in surveys carried out for Fortune and the Geological Survey of Canada.
Three-dimensional inversion modelling carried out by the Geological Survey of Canada defines a near-surface source for the Peanut Lake anomaly, which is largely obscured by overburden and remains unexplained.
A pit dug to provide aggregate for road building, however, did encounter strong copper mineralization alongside the Peanut Lake anomaly. Three samples collected from the pit returned grades of 1.66, 1.55 and 0.78% copper.
Five holes previously drilled in this area also encountered gold grades greater than 1 g/t, including one hole that cut three meters averaging 1.1 g/t gold and 0.355% cobalt.
Fortune said the mineralization unearthed by road construction and intersected in drill core confirm the continuation of gold and cobalt values east of the known Nico deposit where the geology has been displaced by faults.
The company said this year's IP geophysical survey is designed to identify near surface concentrations of disseminated sulfide minerals that typically host the ores in iron oxide copper-gold-type deposits like Nico.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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