With another price increase of 17.2 percent, the Australian market today acknowledged the expansion of American West’s spectacular copper discovery on its Storm project on Somerset Island in Canadian Nunavut. The trading volume reached nearly 20 million AUD with around 65 million shares traded. The closing price was 0.34 AUD.
Conclusion: The news behind today’s discovery is that American West has apparently cracked the code of the Storm deposit. The new drilling results impressively confirm that the geophysical techniques used are reliable tools for searching for copper sulfides at Storm. The size and intensity of the mineralization in the new zone, which has been named ‘Thunder’, is even more powerful and intense than the known high-grade zones 2750N and 2200N along the strike to the east, which last year produced 41 m with 4.18% Cu in ST22-05. American West’s geologists now believe that the Southern Graben Fault represents the primary source for the near-surface and deeper copper mineralization. For this reason, the company is already planning further drilling along the 10-kilometer-long graben structure next spring. In this sense, the discovery at Storm is just at the beginning. Meanwhile, American West expects further results from the ongoing Reserve Circulation (RC) drilling in zones 2750N and 2200N. These near-surface copper targets could be suitable for open-pit mining or direct-shipping ore, similar to the new Thunder zone. The company is also planning an update on this shortly.
With another price increase of 17.2 percent, the Australian market today acknowledged the expansion of American West’s spectacular copper discovery on its Storm project on Somerset Island in Canadian Nunavut. The trading volume reached nearly 20 million AUD with around 65 million shares traded. The closing price was 0.34 AUD.
American West has made two new discoveries with its third diamond drill hole ST23-03 in a previously little-explored area of the Storm project: the upper part of the drill hole encountered a new, significant near-surface mineralization zone, and at depth, the drill hole – as hoped – again intersected a sediment-hosted copper system at a similar target depth as the previous diamond drilling. Due to its outstanding strength, the new near-surface discovery was named ‘Thunder’. Between 32 m and 108 m, visible strong breccias to massive copper sulfide (chalcocite, bornite, and chalcopyrite) were encountered in drill hole ST23-03. The deeper intersection contained 2 m of visible breccias and dense copper sulfide (chalcocite, bornite, and chalcopyrite) between 273 m and 275 m borehole depth. The deeper intersection correlates with the promising copper horizon in the sediments that was intersected at the beginning of this season and is the first recorded occurrence of sedimentary copper south of the Southern Graben Fault (see Figures 1 and 2). Laboratory analysis of the drilling is still pending. Meanwhile, diamond drilling continues on other high-ranking copper targets.
Dave O’Neill, Managing Director of American West Metals, commented: ‘The diamond drilling at Storm continues to be successful and has produced one of the best intersections ever seen on the project. The third diamond drill hole ST23-03 intersected over 76 m of near-surface breccia copper sulfides with zones of massive sulfides. The drill hole has also – for the first time – intersected copper sulfides within the deeper horizon near the southern graben fault, confirming the presence of the sediment-hosted system in new and untested areas. The new near-surface copper zone has been named Thunder, underlining the strength and significance of the discovery. The mineralization style and environment are very similar to the high-grade mineralization within Zone 2750N, including drill hole ST22-05, which yielded 41 m at 4.18% Cu. Zone 2750N is located over 1 km east of Thunder.
The thickness of the near-surface intersection – which contains massive copper sulfides – indicates the potential for a considerable copper volume in this area, which could significantly expand the open-pit resources at Storm. The deeper copper intersection is of great importance for understanding the entire copper occurrence at Storm. This confirms the productivity of the entire area around and south of the southern graben fault. As each widely spaced drill hole encounters the same mineralized unit at depth, the size potential of the copper system cannot be overestimated. Given the success of the gravity modeling and targeting to date, we will prioritize further ground surveys along the 10 km strike length in the spring.’
The exceptional and powerful upper copper sulfide mineralization within ST23-03 is more intense than the similar-looking, high-grade mineralization of the 2750N zone (intersections include 41 m at 4.18% Cu within ST22-05), which is located over 1 km further east (Figures 2 and 3). The entire 76 m intersection in ST23-03 is heavily mineralized and includes a 22 m thick zone of banded semi-massive to massive sulfides (Figures 3 and 4). The massive sulfides are believed to be the source of the MLEM anomaly.
The lower intersection is interpreted as the same distinct sediment-hosted mineralization horizon that was also encountered in diamond drill holes ST22-10, ST23-01, and ST23-02 (Figure 2). Although relatively narrow (~2 m), the presence of strong chalcocite, the mineral often found in the core of these sediment-hosted systems, is extremely encouraging.
Conclusion: The message behind today’s discovery is that American West has apparently cracked the code of the Storm deposit. The new drilling results impressively confirm that the geophysical techniques used are reliable tools for searching for copper sulfides at Storm. The size and intensity of mineralization in the new zone, which has been named “Thunder,” is even more powerful and intense than that of the known high-grade zones 2750N and 2200N along strike to the east, which last year yielded 41 m at 4.18% Cu in ST22-05. American West’s geologists now believe that the Southern Graben Fault represents the primary source for the near-surface and deeper copper mineralization. For this reason, the company is already planning further drilling along the 10-kilometer long graben structure next spring. In this sense, the discovery at Storm is just at the beginning. Meanwhile, American West expects further results from the ongoing Reserve Circulation (RC) drilling in the 2750N and 2200N zones. These near-surface copper targets could be suitable for open-pit mining or direct-shipping ore, similar to the new Thunder zone. The company also plans to provide an update on this shortly.
