The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - October 11, 2023
Boulders with the copper mineral chalcocite collected from a gully below the Lightning Ridge discovery hole of American West Metals' Storm Copper project in northern Nunavut.
American West Metals Ltd. Oct. 11 said that new high-grade copper intercepts encountered with drilling at the Lightning Ridge discovery and 2200N Zone underscore the camp-scale discovery and mining potential across the 850-square-mile (2,200 square kilometers) Storm Copper project on Somerset Island in northern Nunavut.
To further understand this district-scale potential, American West's 2023 program at Storm includes reverse circulation drilling focused on defining a maiden Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant resource around zones of shallow, high-grade copper, plus diamond drilling focused on testing deeper geophysical targets that appear to be the source of the high-grade surface mineralization.
The latest batch of assays comes from nine RC holes testing for near-surface copper at 2200N and Lightning Ridge, a discovery about 250 meters to the north.
Highlights from this latest batch of assays include:
• 29 meters averaging 1.5% copper from a depth of 4.6 meters and three meters of 2.8% copper from 53.5 meters in hole SR23-50 (2200N).
• 15.2 meters averaging 2.3% copper from a depth of 30.5 meters and 15.2 meters averaging 2.1% copper from 77.7 meters in hole SR23-52 (Lightning Ridge).
"This year's drilling program continues to impress with high-grade, near-surface copper mineralisation now confirmed at the Lightning Ridge prospect and 2200N Zones at the Storm project," said American West Metals Managing Director Dave O'Neill.
The company is particularly excited about the high-grade copper encountered in the discovery hole at Lightning Ridge, which lies roughly midway between the 2200N and 2750N zones.
"The assay results for Lightning Ridge have revealed new thick, high-grade copper zones that have potential to add significant volumes of potentially economic near-surface mineralisation at Storm," O'Neill added.
The Lightning Ridge discovery hole targeted a historical electromagnetic geophysical anomaly above a gully where massive chalcocite (a copper sulfide mineral containing approximately 79.8% copper) boulders were previously found.
Lightning Ridge is the second zone of near-surface, high-grade copper mineralization discovered by drilling this year.
In September, American West reported that one hole cut 76 meters averaging 2% copper from a depth of 32.4 meters at Thunder, a discovery about 1,000 meters northwest of Lightning Ridge.
The company says both the Thunder and Lightning Ridge discoveries highlight the effectiveness of EM anomalies as a targeting tool for identifying semi-massive and massive copper sulfides at Storm.
So far, six near-surface, high-grade copper zones – 2200N, 2750N, 3500N, 4100N, Lightning Ridge, and Thunder – have been identified over a 4.5- by 2.5-kilometer (2.8 by 1.6 miles) area of the Storm property.
Previously reported highlights from 2022 and 2023 drilling of these zones include:
• 57 meters averaging 2.5% copper from a depth of eight meters in hole ST22-02 (2750N).
• 41 meters averaging 4.18% from a depth of 83 meters in hole ST22-05 (2750N).
• 27.4 meters averaging 1.5% copper from surface and 27.4 meters averaging 1.3% copper from 30.5 meters in hole SR23-21 (2750N).
• 67.1 meters averaging 1.1% copper from a depth of 54.9 meters in hole SR23-03 (4100N).
• 29 meters averaging 1.2% copper from a depth of 62.5 meters in hole SR23-13 (4100N).
• 25.9 meters averaging 1.3% copper from a depth of 61 meters in hole SR23-14 (4100N).
• 15.3 meters averaging 1.6% copper from a depth of 59.4 meters in hole SR23-17 (4100N).
American West is assessing the potential of utilizing ore sorting technology to quickly develop low-cost, open-pit mining of the near-surface deposits at Storm.
Preliminary testing of mineralization from the near-surface copper zones at Storm has already produced a direct shipping ore product with grades up to 53% copper.
Without the cost or permitting complexity of building a mill and processing plant, a mining operation that just needs to crush and sort ore would be much quicker to develop than a traditional copper mine.
American West says studies are underway to assess the potential for such an operation.
Diamond drilling carried out has also begun to demonstrate that deep gravity geophysical targets represent the source of high-grade copper found at the surface.
"All five deeper diamond holes have intersected the sediment-hosted copper system with the wide-spaced nature of the holes indicating the very large lateral extent of the system," O'Neill said in September. "With kilometre-scale targets remaining untested, we will plan a major drill program for 2024 to scope out the extent of the sediment-hosted copper."
The prospective stratigraphy that hosts the Storm deposits currently being defined extends for roughly 50 miles (80 kilometers) across the property. This includes Tempest, a prospect about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the south where selective rock samples have returned grades as high as 32% copper.
"The latest results are an excellent outcome as we continue to demonstrate the potential for a camp-scale copper mining opportunity within the Storm project," said the American West Metals CEO.
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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