American West Metals Limited (ASX: AW1), a low-footprint, North American- focused base metals explorer, is pleased to announce further strong assay results from the diamond drill program at the West Desert Project in Utah, USA.
“We are very excited to announce more strong assay results that continue to demonstrate the quality of the West Desert Deposit,” Managing Director, Dave O’Neill, said.
“The results from WD22-05 are important for the resource upgrade currently underway as they have identified significant volumes of copper and gold mineralisation outside of the current resource model as well as confirming strong grades within the Deep Zone of the deposit.
“The drill programme is continuing to exceed our expectations and our assumptions about the outstanding growth and higher-grade development potential of West Desert.
“We look forward to reporting on the results for the remaining drill holes in the coming weeks.”
WD22-05 – DRILL HOLE DETAILS
Drill hole WD22-05 was designed to test the continuity of mineralisation on the western edge of the Main Zone, and within the Deep Zone of the West Desert Deposit. WD22-05 is the first drill hole by American West that has intersected the central portion of the Deep Zone.
WD22-05 was drilled to a depth of 739.7m and has successfully intersected a number of thick, massive and semi- massive zinc and copper sulphide dominant zones contained within broad lower-grade intervals (Figure 2). The intersections herein are expressed as downhole widths and are interpreted to be close to true widths within the porphyry and skarn, and approximately 80-90% within the CRD mineralisation.
WD22-05 was selected as the fourth drill hole for assaying to prioritise information on the Deep Zone mineralisation for the ongoing geological and resource modelling.
Growth potential in copper
The upper mineralised intervals within WD22-05 are interpreted to form the western edge of the Main Zone of the West Desert Deposit, and are comprised of magnetite rich skarns hosted within dolomite and limestone.
The first major zone contains magnetite skarn/hornfels and the bulk of the mineralisation in this area of the deposit is disseminated, and generally lower grade than the core of the Main Zone. However, strong intervals with abundant sphalerite and galena were encountered between 249 and 269m downhole. Lead and silver are present in higher volumes (i.e., 4.69% Pb, 3.97% Zn, 69.87g/t Ag from 259.37 – 259.68m) than what is typically seen elsewhere within the West Desert Deposit.
The second major skarn (between approximately 294 and 350m downhole) contains variable amounts of chalcopyrite within the entire interval. A narrow, strongly silica altered porphyry with high-grade molybdenum intrudes the skarn between approximately 298 and 302m. Further copper-rich magnetite skarns with bornite are located directly below the above interval between 350 and 365m, and 382 and 396m downhole.
The strong copper sulphide dominant mineralisation was encountered where the skarn is in contact with the quartz monzonite porphyry. This geological association is common within other large porphyry related mineral systems in the district (i.e., Bingham Canyon). Most of this mineralisation lies outside of the current copper resource shell and is further evidence of the resource growth potential at West Desert.
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