American West Metals Limited (ASX: AW1) has unveiled several large targets from the Induced Polarisation (IP) Survey conducted at Copper Warrior Project in Utah, USA.
“Our Copper Warrior Project is located in Tier 1 copper country in the USA – only 15km from Utah’s second largest copper mine, the Lisbon Valley Copper Mine,” Managing Director, Dave O’Neill, said.
“Field work to generate drill targets at Copper Warrior has progressed in the background while we completed our high-profile drilling campaigns at our West Desert and Storm Projects.
“With the existing Lisbon Valley Copper Mine nearby, and outcropping copper already identified throughout the Copper Warrior tenure, the potential of the project to host large volumes of copper mineralisation is compelling.
“A high-resolution IP survey was deployed by American West Metals to screen the entire Copper Warrior project area with the aim of identifying priority areas for drilling.
“Modelling of the IP survey data has successfully generated strong anomalies that show clear similarities with the geophysical signature of known copper deposits in the district. Significantly, a number of the IP anomalies at Copper Warrior are associated with high-grade outcropping copper.
“We are also excited by the location of some of these IP anomalies adjacent to historical producing copper mines, suggesting potential that we have identified a continuation of the known copper mineralisation in the area.
“A drilling programme has been planned to test these high-priority targets with permitting underway.
“Work is also continuing on our West Dessert JORC compliant resource and development scenarios, and we look forward to providing further updates on this work – as well as the timing of the drilling programme at Copper Warrior – in the coming weeks.”
Tier 1 Copper District 1
The Copper Warrior Project covers an area of outcropping Dakota and Lower Burro Canyon sandstone with widespread occurrences of disseminated and fracture controlled copper mineralisation. Surface exposures in the project area look very similar to those at the Big Indian Copper Mine that abuts Copper Warrior and the Lisbon Valley Copper Mine located 15km to the south.
Copper mineralisation at the Lisbon Valley Mine is found in both the Dakota and Lower Burro Canyon sandstone beds, with mineralisation in the Lower Burrro Canyon unit making up about 80% of the reserves and geological resource (>40Mt @ 0.46% Cu for over 180,000t of copper). All of the Big Indian resources were hosted within the Lower Burro Canyon unit.
The copper mineralisation at Copper Warrior is comprised of disseminated chalcocite within the sandstone units, and chalcocite, azurite and malachite where the mineralisation is outcropping. Vein-style and higher-grade mineralisation is common in the project area close to the Lisbon Valley Fault, which is the main source of copper bearing fluids.
The IP survey completed by American West Metals was the first of its type at the Project. The survey was designed to test the response of the known mineralised units at the Big Indian Mine that extend into the Copper Warrior project area, and to screen the remainder of the project area for similar features.
A total of 11 dipole-dipole lines at 100m array spacings were completed over the prospective stratigraphy for a total of 251 stations. The results from the survey were recently reprocessed and interpreted in 3D to provide inversion data and better depth constraints for drill targeting.
The survey has identified a series of coincident chargeable and conductive anomalies that are located in compelling geological locations.
The 3D inversion work has revealed two distinct chargeable layers that are interpreted to represent both the Dakota and Lower Burro Units.
Given the fairly resistive nature of the host sandstone units, the interpretations suggest that the chargeable features may be related to the presence of disseminated and vein-style copper sulphide mineralisation within these target horizons.
Importantly, a very large IP anomaly (Anom 3 – over 3.5km long) is located around the existing Big Inidian and Blue Jay pits, and could respresent extensions to the south and east of the known mining units. One of the new IP anomalies (Anom 1) with dimensions of approximately 850m x 570m is located in an area of outcropping copper mineralisation with assays up to 3.3% Cu.
The size and distribution of the IP anomalies suggests that there is potential for a number of Lisbon Valley sized deposits within the Copper Warrior Project area.
Forward Programme
A maiden drilling programme has been designed to test the high-prioirty IP anomalies and other stratigraphic targets. Permitting is currently underway with an aim to have project access toward the end of the year.
The drilling programme will consist of 15 to 20 reverse circulation (RC) drill holes for approximately 3,000m, with a maximum drill depth of approximately 150-200m.
For further information please visit: https://www.americanwestmetals.com/
