American West is marching closer towards a maiden resource at its Storm copper project in Nunavut, Canada, after drilling continued to intersect thick intervals of copper sulphides.

Thick intervals of strong visual copper sulphides – topping up at 32m – were noted in another five reverse circulation holes completed at the 4100N Zone under the drill program to support a maiden resource estimate.

This is hugely positive for American West Metals (ASX:AW1) given that extensive near-surface copper mineralisation has already been intersected across 1,000m of strike.

Samples from this second batch of drill samples have been sent to the laboratory for analysis while drilling is ongoing at the project with another 10-12 holes planned at the 4100N Zone, which will be followed by drilling at other high-grade copper targets.

Additionally, a moving loop electromagnetic (MLEM) survey is close to completion at the same zone with several new, strong conductors already identified for future drilling.

“The drilling at the 4100N Zone is progressing quickly and continues to deliver excellent results, with nine out of nine holes now hitting significant intervals of visual copper sulphides,” Managing Director Dave O’Neill said.

“The drilling is confirming our assumptions that the mineralisation is laterally extensive and flat lying at the 4100N Zone.”

He added that the MLEM has already started to define a highly conductive corridor through the central 4100N Zone, which is likely to be a super-charged zone of copper mineralisation as historical drill holes have sampled at over 30% copper.

“We will aim to put some more drill holes into it as it could have a significant impact on the resource estimate,” O’Neill noted.

 

Copper potential at 4100N

The mineralised footprint at the 4100N Zone has been shown by historical drilling to extend over an area of about 32 hectares.

All nine holes drilled by the company to date have intersected thick intervals of visual sulphides, indicating that there is an outstanding opportunity to define a significant near-surface resource that could support an initial low-cost, open-pit mining operation.

American West noted that the zones of strong sulphides are hosted within a broad mineralised package of what is interpreted to be mostly vein and fracture style mineralisation.

Dominant copper sulphide minerals observed within the drill holes to date are chalcocite, with chalcopyrite and bornite also present in high abundance along with minor native copper and copper oxides.

Meanwhile, the company noted that the MLEM survey has already identified seven strong conductors with preliminary data showing a distinctive and strong conductive trend within the 4100N Zone.

 

Other activity and coming work

American West has completed a high-resolution ground gravity survey over the Storm area to identify deeper targets that may represent accumulations of dense copper sulphides associated with the emerging sediment hosted copper system.

It noted that the recent discovery in drill hole ST22-10 suggests that the known near-surface copper prospects at Storm may be related to a large, sediment hosted style copper system at depth.

Diamond drilling is planned to follow-up any targets and to test high priority areas of the interpreted large sediment hosted copper system.

The company also intends to carry out a MLEM survey over the Tempest prospect about 40km south of the Storm deposits, which has a large copper gossan exposed at surface with assays up to 32% copper.

Drilling at 4100N Zone will be followed by resource definition at the 2200N and 2750N Zone, where drilling earlier this year intersected high-grade copper sulphides close to surface including 41m at 4.18% copper from 38m (ST22-05).

Once resource drilling is completed, the company will carry out diamond drilling to test high priority targets.

Additionally, ore sorting and beneficiation test work for a potential direct shipping ore operation is continuing with results to follow shortly.

 

 

 

This article was developed in collaboration with American West Metals, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

 

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.