New Porphyry Deposit Suspected
With targeted 3D-IP surveys on its New Craigmont copper project near Merritt, B.C., Nicola Mining Inc. (TSXV: NIM; FRA: HLIA) aims to test two previously identified targets in the upcoming exploration season to determine, on one hand, if the MARB-CAS zone could be a new version of the high-grade historical Craigmont Mine with skarn mineralization.
On the other hand, geologists suspect a potential new porphyry deposit in the so-called West Craigmont zone. Both target areas together cover 4.5 square kilometers (see Figure 1). They are part of Nicola’s total 10,913-hectare (>100 km²) license, which borders Canada’s largest copper mine, Teck Resources’ Highland Valley Copper. The IP survey is planned for late April/early May.
Peter Espig, CEO of Nicola Mining Inc. commented: “Over the past two years, various modern exploration techniques have shown a significant correlation with older IP surveys and drilling. As the recently mapped mineralized outcrops align substantially with the observed anomalies, we are confident that the upcoming IP survey in the MARB-CAS and West Craigmont zones will yield solid drilling targets.”
In 2017 and 2018, Nicola flew 32.45 line kilometers of IP survey (marked in yellow in Figure 1). The survey results and subsequent exploration drilling showed a significant correlation between the IP data and high-grade copper intersections in the Embayment Zone (Figure 2).
The goal of the IP survey is to find drilling targets west of the historical Craigmont Mine and the Embayment zones (Figure 1). Nicola’s geological team believes that the mineralized body has been offset by local faults and extends further to the west. The potential mineralization at the MARB-CAS anomaly is interpreted as analogous to the ore bodies of the historical Craigmont Mine and the exploration results in the Embayment Zone. The expected IP results are supported by copper mineralization observed and mapped in the MARB-CAS outcrops, both hosted in the Guichon quartz diorite.
The mineralization at CAS consists of magnetite breccia and magnetite-chalcopyrite mineralization associated with garnet-epidote-actinolite skarn. The MARB-CAS zone exhibits similar magnetite-associated geophysical features to the historical Craigmont Mine and the Embayment Zone (Figure 3).
The goal of the IP survey is to find a porphyry drilling target near the WP occurrence at West Craigmont. The 2022 ZTEM survey discovered a high-resistivity feature coinciding with a high-magnetism anomaly in the West Craigmont zone. The 2017 IP survey identified a chargeability anomaly to the southwest below the MARB 72 occurrence. The 2024 IP survey aims to determine if the ZTEM resistivity anomaly coincides with a chargeability anomaly, which would indicate a porphyry.
