Bastion Minerals Ltd (ASX: BMO) has provided an update regarding its ICE Copper Project in the Yukon Province, Western Canada. This is a province with a strong history of VHMS deposit discovery and mining and BMO has commenced activities to validate the historical, foreign non-JORC resource.
Commenting on locating the original drill core on site the ICE Project, executive chairman, Mr Ross Landles, said: “Locating the original drill core at the ICE site is a tremendous positive for the company and will be of great assistance in the attempt to update the historical resource to a JORC (2012) compliant resource. On site, we are confirming the locations of the historical drill holes, as part of validating the historical, foreign, non-JORC resource.”
A total of 121 diamond drill holes (10,584m) – were drilled in the resource. All but five of the drill holes were drilled in a 600m by 400m area. The outlying drill holes tested a limited number of the soil geochemical anomalies defined on the project. Of equal importance, there are heli EM geophysical targets along strike from the drilling that have not been tested.
Only a small area over the deposit was subject to a ground-based EM survey and no down hole EM was run in the historical drill holes. Evaluation of the EM geophysics shows equipment was low powered frequency domain equipment, with a maximum investigation depth of 50m. Use of more modern high-powered equipment is expected to be much more effective in defining geophysical targets
The best assay results were obtained near the centre of the drill area in a 350m long, approximately 50m wide, zone consisting predominantly of primary massive sulphide mineralization. Copper intersections within this zone include:
- 5.92m @ 8.56% Cu from 88.57m (drill hole ID97-11)
- 28.55m @ 3.57% Cu from 90.02m (lD97-13)
- 28.51m @ 3.20% Cu from 13.25m (lC97-57)
- 25.09m @ 3.47% Cu from 19.26m (lC97-46)
- 20.56m @ 5.20% Cu from 72.10m (lC96-34)
- 19.75m @ 4.31% Cu from 79.55m (lD97-36)
- 8.97m @ 4.18% Cu from 17.68m (IC97-84)
- 7.55m @ 4.09% Cu from 86.77m (lD97-20)
- 7.43m @ 3.35% Cu from 30.97m (IC97-70)
The resulting 1998 resource of 4.56 Mt @1.48% Cu is a historical and foreign estimate and not reported in accordance with the JORC Code. A cut-off of 0.5% Cu was applied for the sulphide mineralization and 0.3% for the oxide mineralization in the historical foreign non-JORC resource.
A preliminary open pit was designed for the deposit at the time of the 1998 estimate, based on only the copper value of the Project. The pit did not extend to the details of haul road location and benches and is not considered to have been optimized. A volume with 3.4Mt @1.48% Cu within the resource was estimated to lie within that simple pit. The pit walls were planned as 45 degrees, except for the southern wall, which was planned as 50 degrees. The average strip ratio was 2.4:1, with a maximum stripping ratio for the deepest tonne of mineralization estimated at 10:1.
The high-grade core is surrounded by a broad halo containing thick intersections of lower-grade mineralization from 1.5% to 3% in massive sulphide, and 0.5 to 1.5% in secondary copper mineralization closer to surface.
The copper grade in the halo typically ranges to 1.2% in stockwork sulphide. Massive sulphide mineralization usually contains significant gold (0.2 to 0.8g/t), silver (2 to 20g/t) and cobalt (0.02 to 0.08%). The historical diamond drilling at the ICE Project has defined a historical, foreign non-JORC indicated mineral resource of 4.56Mt grading 1.48% copper, which has been verified by evaluation of the available drill hole and assay data.
“We are undertaking re-assay of core intervals, to validate the original assaying, and to obtain gold results which were not assayed in all original assays. The project has untested drill targets on EM geophysics and geochemical targets, to discover new high-grade mineralised lenses to increase the project size. We look forward to providing shareholders with updates regarding the progress of activities on this exciting copper opportunity, which has the potential to be a game changer for Bastion.” Added Mr Landles.
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