The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - March 4, 2024
Known as the Payback South Bolder, this massive chalcocite sample collected from Epworth averages 61% copper and 5,600 g/t silver.
Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. March 1 announced that it has the option to earn an 80% interest in Epworth, a project that covers a 74-kilometer- (46 miles) long trend of high-grade copper, silver, and zinc mineralization with accompanying gold, cobalt, and lead in western Nunavut.
Located 80 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of Kugluktuk, a Nunavut village formerly called Coppermine, Epworth has all the hallmarks of the high-grade sediment-hosted copper mineralization at Storm, a Nunavut property Aston Bay optioned to American West Metals Ltd.
"This mineralization is in a style typical of the Central African Copper Belt that boasts several large, high-grade deposits," said Aston Bay Holdings CEO Thomas Ullrich. "We have similar mineralization at our Storm project and look to leverage our knowledge and experience gained there to make new discoveries at Epworth."
Copper mineralization was discovered at Epworth by a bush pilot flying over the project during the 1940s.
Noranda Mining and Exploration discovered new base metals occurrences around the original discovery during exploration and mapping in the 1990s. In that time, Noranda completed 132 meters of drilling at Epworth and about 2,000 meters across a wider claim package now under option to Aston Bay. The best intercepts from the very shallow holes drilled at Epworth returned 10.4% copper over 0.9 meters, 0.3% copper over eight meters, and 18.4% copper and 302 grams per metric ton silver over 0.3 meters.
Located in the Kitikmeot Region of eastern Nunavut, Epworth lies about 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of tidewater and 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
No drilling has been completed at Epworth since the 1990s, but prospecting over the previous three years has returned some impressive base metal and critical mineral values.
Rock grab samples collected from along a 2,800-meter-trend at Epworth have returned grades as high as 38% copper, 1,100 g/t silver, 3 g/t gold, 27% zinc, 17% lead, and 1,700 parts per million cobalt.
Prospecting and soil sampling have also identified other promising new trends and showings, such as the new Northeast Showing, where rock samples collected in 2023 returned up to 19% lead and 0.8% copper.
Aston Bay has entered into an option agreement to earn up to 80% interest in Epworth from Emerald Geological Services (EGS) by investing C$3 million into exploring the property over four years.
Aston Bay also agreed to pay EGS C$50,000 upon signing the agreement.
EGS will be carrying out the exploration at Epworth under the direction of a technical committee made up of a member appointed by each Aston Bay and EGS.
"EGS is extremely pleased to partner with Aston Bay in advancing the Epworth property, as we feel that this underexplored sedimentary belt has the potential to host large base metal deposits," said Emerald Geological Services CEO Bruce MacLachlan. "We are excited to work with a company that shares our vision, and which has already had success in similar geological settings in Nunavut."
CORRECTION: This article was updated to correctly state Epworth is in western Nunavut.
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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