American West’s drilling has uncovered evidence of a major copper system at depth within its Storm project on Somerset Island in Canada’s Nunavut territory.

Exploration drill hole ST22-10 intersected over 68m of stratiform copper sulphide mineralisation from 277m downhole which is associated with a previously untested 800m by 300m electromagnetic plate.

The mineralisation is interpreted to be stratiform and is hosted within a vuggy, bituminous and fossiliferous carbonate unit, a geological setting which 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.

And if this wasn’t enough, American West Metals (ASX:AW1) has another six similar EM plates to test – a strong indicator that a large-scale mineral system is present.

“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,” managing director Dave O’Neill noted.

“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.”

Shareholders clearly agreed about the discovery’s significance, sending shares in the company up 36% this morning to 17c.

 

Storm/Seal project

The Storm and Seal projects in the northern part of Nunavut encompasses a regionally extensive land package of 4,145km2 on the uninhabited Somerset Island.

Storm is a high-grade, sediment hosted copper discovery with multiple, thick high-grade copper intersections such as 110m at 2.45% copper from surface and 56.3m at 3.07% copper from 12.2m at a number of target zones.

Diamond drilling, which started in July and was aimed initially at extending and infilling the 2750N zone where historical drilling returned results such 110m at 2.45% copper from surface, has already intersected extensive shallow copper.

This shallow material also has proven DSO potential with initial ore sorting generating a +53% copper product.

 

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.

Read MoreCopper

Featured Companies

You might be interested in