American West Metals Limited (ASX: AW1) has drilled a major copper discovery at the Storm Copper Project on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada.
“This is a game changing discovery at the Storm Copper Project. Exploration drilling has intersected stratiform copper sulphide mineralisation at depth which supports our geological assumptions that there is a major copper system lying below the high-grade near surface mineralisation,” Dave O’Neill, Managing Director, said.
“The new copper mineralisation is associated with a large EM plate that is one of six untested plates, most of which are located in highly prospective positions – below or adjacent to the known high-grade copper prospects and fault system.
“The importance of this discovery for the project cannot be overstated, as it has hugely positive implications for the copper endowment within the project area.
“We look forward to reporting on further drilling results in the coming days.”
Drill hole ST22-10 has intersected a thick sequence of copper sulphide mineralisation associated with a large, previously untested EM anomaly that was defined in the fixed loop EM (FLEM) survey completed over the Storm Copper Project area in 2021.
Approximately 68.8m of chalcopyrite dominant mineralisation was intersected from 277m downhole in drill hole ST22-10 (approx. 230m vertical depth). The mineralisation is interpreted to be stratiform and is hosted within a vuggy, bituminous and fossiliferous carbonate unit.
This geological setting is consistent with the typical mineralisation model for sedimentary copper systems where this style of permeable host rocks form chemical traps for the deposition of copper rich fluids.
This newly discovered mineralisation and setting at Storm shares features very similar to many large volume, sedimentary hosted copper systems. Importantly, ST22-10 is the first hole to intersect one of the deeper EM anomalies modelled from the 2021 FLEM survey with six other similar EM plates yet to be tested, indicating the potential for a large-scale mineral system.
Background
Historical EM surveys have successfully identified several strong conductive anomalies that are associated with known copper mineralisation at Storm. The high-powered 2021 survey completed by American West was designed to better define these historical anomalies, highlight potential extensions to the known copper mineralisation and to also identify potential new targets.
The 2021 survey identified two distinct types of EM anomalies which included strong, near-surface and subvertical conductors, as well as a series of large, deeper and generally flat-lying conductor.
The geometry and mostly gentle dips of the deep EM conductors suggested that they may be related to stratiform type targets, and therefore may be indicative of traditional sedimentary type copper mineralisation. Importantly, the new EM anomalies are located proximal to the known bounding faults of the Storm graben, which are interpreted controls on the copper mineralisation at Storm. Conductor Loop7 is a large conductive feature (modelled as 800 x 300m, depth ~250m, conductivity thickness 10). This target was prioritised for drilling as its eastern extent appeared to project upwards towards the 4100N Zone, where previous high-grade intersections include 15m @ 3.88% Cu from 72.4m (drill hole ST99-47), and therefore presented as a compelling target.
Significantly, six new EM anomalies remain to be drill tested – these include a large conductive anomaly (1,700 x 1,000m) below the highly mineralised 2750N and 2200N Zones, and another large anomaly to the east of the 4100N Zone (690 x 695m) where historical drilling has also intersected high-grade copper sulphides. All anomalies are located within 500m of the surface.
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