White Cliff Minerals doubles down on Canadian copper drill targets

White Cliff Minerals flags three targets at the Rae copper project in Canada’s Nunavut territory
Project could host district scale copper in the historically productive region
Company now zeroing in on targets for future drilling

Special Report: White Cliff Minerals says an airborne geophysical survey at its Rae copper project in Canada has flagged three targets and boosted confidence in its potential to host district scale sediment-hosted copper.

White Cliff (ASX:WCN) reported up to 64.02% copper from rock chip assays at Rae earlier this month, indicating widespread, outcropping copper throughout the 1,198km² licenced area.

As well as comprising multiple historic high-grade copper projects in the Coppermine River area, the Rae project is home to numerous historical non-JORC – or NI 43-101 and ‘blue sky’ – mineral estimates that will be a priority for drilling and conversion into JORC classifications.

This survey has identified three distinct, conductive anomalies in the 152km2 Hulk exploration district, including the East (Target A) which is less than 2km west of the historic drilling of sediment hosted copper by Kaizen Discovery Corp.

That drilling demonstrated increasing copper grades as drill holes progressed westward towards WCN’s licences and the Hulk target area.

The East target area is also bound by two major N/S trending faults, including the regional Herb Dixon structure – a known conduit of hydrothermal copper fluids – and spans more than 4.5km x 8km N/S and is open to the north.

The Central target (Target B) also sits on the eastern side of the Herb Dixon structure, within a 3.5km x 8km conductive footprint, also open to the north.

And the West target (Target C) covers an area 10km x 4km within the bounds of two major NW/SE faults.

Rae is located in Nunavut, an emerging territory for minerals exploration where control over its natural resources was passed from the Canadian Federal Government to the provincial authority this year.It has signalled a new dawn for explorers in the region like White Cliff, with a boom expected in exploration investment and development of new resources uncovered at projects like Rae.

Read: A new mining chapter in Nunavut excites ASX copper explorers

WCN Hulk map — Map of the conductivity response within the Hulk sub basins. Pic: WCN

Zeroing in on a ‘substantial metal occurrence’

WCN says the MobileMT airborne survey (conducted over 2400 line kilometres) has provided significant scope for multiple copper discoveries at Hulk and the broader Rae project.

“The recently expanded Hulk District now has multiple, independent and coincident datasets that demonstrate sediment hosted copper mineralisation,” WCN managing director Troy Whittaker said.

“The identification of three sub-basins along a 20km strike length provides us with significant scope for multiple copper discoveries.

“The conductive intervals we’ve observed dip northward, aligning perfectly with the orientation of the Rae Group sedimentary structure, extending over 10km down dip into White Cliff’s recently claimed ground.

“The remarkable continuity in conductive signatures across these sections, combined with the coincident chemical and geophysical responses observed at Hulk can only be explained by one of a few possibilities, one of which is a substantial metal occurrence.”

With these results, alongside the assays received from the field campaign at Rae, Whittaker said the company is now in a position where it can confirm and pinpoint drilling locations for the upcoming campaign.

“The expanded Hulk target has encouraged the company to look at expanding the drilling services that are planned for 2025 and I look forward to providing an update on the scale of that fully funded drilling campaign later this year,” he said.

The company continues to review, interpret and analyse several additional anomalies within the greater Rae project area that have shown elevated conductive signatures with results to be confirmed prior to the end of the year.

This article was developed in collaboration with White Cliff Minerals, 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.