The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News September 2, 2022
Massive bornite cut a depth of 50.9 meters in hole ST22-05, part of a five-meter intercept averaging 24.3% copper.
Click on image for larger map.
American West Metals Ltd. Sept. 1 announced spectacular copper grades from the first assays of its 2022 drill program at the Storm Copper project in Nunavut.
Since optioning Storm from Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. last year, American West has been pursuing the idea of upgrading shallow high-grade copper mineralization identified in several zones on this northern Canada project to direct shipping ore with simple and low-cost ore sorting technology.
Toward this objective, the Australia-based company began its Storm drilling at 2750N Zone, where drilling carried out in the 1990s encountered near-surface, high-grade copper mineralization.
Highlights from historical drilling at 2750N include:
• 110 meters averaging 2.45% copper from surface in hole ST97-08.
• 56.3 meters averaging 3.07% copper from a depth of 12.2 meters in hole ST99-19.
The first assays from American West's maiden drill program at Storm are from hole ST22-05, which was drilled about 25 meters west of ST97-08.
Starting at a depth of 83 meters, hole ST22-05 cut 41 meters averaging 4.18% copper, including a 15-meter subsection averaging 10.05% copper.
"Assays for drill hole ST22-05 – the first assays to be received for drilling in the current program – have returned spectacular copper grades over very significant thicknesses," said American West Metals Managing Director Dave O'Neill. "These results immediately validate the historical high-grade intersections within the 2750N Zone, and highlight the quality of the Storm mineral system."
ST22-05, which was drilled to a depth of 89 meters, is one of eight holes drilled so far to determine the resource potential of the shallow 2750N Zone. The company says all these holes have cut thick zones of breccia and massive copper sulfides (mostly chalcocite) hosted within much broader intervals of vein and fracture style mineralization.
"The 2750N Zone is currently over 200 meters long and still open along strike and at depth, with excellent potential for further drilling to significantly expand the high-grade mineralisation," said O'Neill. "Further results for this year's drilling are imminent and we look forward to reporting these soon."
American West says there is excellent potential for further extensions to the 2750N Zone with strong copper anomalism in soils and rock chips along strike for more than 1,000 meters from the known mineralization. Massive chalcocite has been mapped in outcrop on the western margin of 2750N Zone, and rock chip samples from this expansion area have returned assay with as much as 62% copper.
Further drilling is planned to expand 2750N. The company also plans to carry out drilling to define initial resources at 4100N and 2200N, nearby zones with shallow high-grade copper mineralization that has been intersected in historical drilling.
In addition to the 997 meters of shallow drilling completed so far this year, American West has drilled 537 meters to test deep electromagnetic conductors identified with geophysical programs completed at Storm during 2021.
Last week, the company reported that hole ST22-10, which was targeting one of these conductors about 2,500 meters northwest of the current drilling at 2750N and immediately west of 4100N, cut 68.8 meters of chalcopyrite dominant copper mineralization starting at a depth of 277 meters.
"This is a game changing discovery at the Storm Copper Project," O'Neill said at the time.
Further details on hole ST22-10 can be read at "Game changing" copper drilled at Storm in the August 26, 2022 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
In addition to drilling, American West is preparing for the start of beneficiation and metallurgical test work to create a definitive flow sheet for a direct shipping ore operation from the 2750N Zone mineralization. Previous testing using core from historical drilling at Storm produced a greater than 53% copper direct shipping ore product using an ore sorter with no further processing or optimization.
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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