New listing Diablo brings red hot US gold and copper projects into focus

Diablo Resources (ASX:DBO) has brought its portfolio of US gold and copper to the ASX after raising $6.5m through its initial public offering priced at 20c per share.

The company will use the proceeds from the IPO to give its projects the attention that Arizona Lithium, which had spun off the Devil’s Canyon, Western Desert and Lone Pine projects to focus on its Big Sandy lithium, the attention that they deserve.

Proceeds will be used to complete further exploration, including geophysical surveys, geochemical sampling, geological mapping and drilling of existing mineral anomalies and exploration targets at all three projects.

This will focus on exploration and other resource opportunities that have the potential to define maiden resources.

All three projects sit within similar geological structures that host large gold mines or resources. With all three projects being drill ready, the DBO team will hit the ground running with exploration to commence very soon.

Initial work is expected to be carried out on the Western Desert project, which is close to Long Canyon and where some encouraging surface samples were recovered.

Diablo is led by NTM Gold exploration manager Lyle Thorne as its chief executive officer.

It also counts Arizona Lithium managing director Paul Lloyd as its chairman along with Barnaby Egerton-Warburton and Greg Smith as non-executive directors.

Western Desert

Western Desert consists of 257 mineral claims and one state lease covering a total area of 28.65 sqkm in Utah.

It sits in the sequence of Cambro-Ordovician carbonate and sedimentary rocks that host the Carlin Trend gold deposits 200 km to the west and Newmont Corporation’s Long Canyon Gold Mine 50 km to the west.

Previous exploration has consisted of minor shafts, adits and dozer scrapes along with more recent photogeological interpretation, mapping, rock chip, stream sediment sampling and ground magnetics and gravity surveys.

Sampling has topped up at 6.9 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, 1,495g/t silver and 5.09% copper.

Photogeological interpretation has identified 11 geophysical and structural targets while stream sediment sampling has identified four areas of stream sediment anomalism.

Devil’s Canyon and Lone Pine

Devil’s Canyon is prospective for both gold and copper and consists of 90 mineral claims covering 7.3sqkm in the Carlin Trend in Nevada that has produced over 200Moz of gold.

It is about 20 km west of Kinross Gold Corporation’s Bald Mountain Gold Mine and 40 km north of Barrick Gold Corporation’s Ruby Hill Gold Mine.

Minor copper mining occurred within the project during the 1950s and a period of exploration commenced in 1987 with stream sediment sampling followed by 13 reverse-circulation drill holes testing the property for gold mineralisation.

Rock samples have returned assays as high as 191.5g/t gold, 524g/t silver and 16.05% copper.

Further mapping and sampling are planned before drilling is carried out in the 2021 northern field season.

Lone Pine comprises two patented mining claims and 268 mineral claims covering 21.85 sqkm in Idaho and is considered to be prospective for gold.

Gold was discovered in 1882 with most work completed on the Lone Pine vein zone prior to 1907 while the King Solomon mine located about 900m to the southeast was reportedly mined for high grade gold between 1890 and 1910.

During 2020, 11 diamond holes completed along the Lone Pine vein zone intersected the mineralised zone with a top result of 0.31m grading 65.6g/t gold.

This is on top of historical drilling that returned results such as 1.2m at 17g/t gold and 1.9m at 12.9g/t gold with mineralisation open in all directions.

This article was developed in collaboration with Diablo Resources, 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.