American West’s induced polarisation survey has identified several large copper targets at its Copper Warrior project in Utah.
The largest anomaly has a strike of more than 3.5km and surrounds the historical Big Indian and Blue Jay copper mines, indicating potential for extensions to known sedimentary copper mineralisation.
American West Metals (ASX:AW1) has also received copper grades of up to 3.3% copper from geochemical sampling over IP Anomaly 1, which stretches out over 850m by 570m.
The results are hugely intriguing for the company given that Copper Warrior is located just 15km from Lisbon Valley, Utah’s second largest copper mine.
“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,” managing director Dave O’Neill said.
“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.
O’Neill noted that the IP survey had 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,” he added.
“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.”
Copper Warrior
Copper Warrior covers an area of outcropping Dakota and Lower Burro Canyon sandstone with widespread occurrences of disseminated and fracture controlled copper mineralisation.
These surface exposures look very similar to those at the Big Indian copper mine that abuts Copper Warrior and the Lisbon Valley copper mine.
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.
Likewise, all of the Big Indian resources were hosted within the Lower Burro Canyon unit.
American West’s IP 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.
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 program
A maiden drilling program of between 15 and 20 holes to test the high-priority IP anomalies and other stratigraphic targets at Copper Warrior has been designed with permitting currently underway.
Work is also continuing to define a JORC resource and development scenarios at its West Desert project.
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.