American West Metals has paved the way for a resource upgrade and extension for its Cyclone deposit in the Canadian province of Nunavut, with notable new drill hits including 19.8m at 1.2 per cent copper and 3 grams per tonne silver from just 12.2m.
A new suite of drilling results released by the company today shows that intercept also includes 4.6m going 3 per cent copper and 7g/t silver from 21.3m and is followed by a separate 3m slice running a decent 3.2 per cent copper and 8.5g/t silver from 59.4m.
A total of 100 reverse-circulation (RC) drillholes and 12 diamond drillholes have been completed at Storm this year through more than 15,500m. Aggressive drilling is continuing around the clock with two RC rigs and one diamond drill rig, advancing rapidly towards the company’s planned 20,000m of drilling in the current program.
A second RC drillhole at the Cyclone deposit picked up 13.7m at 2.1 per cent copper and 7.9g/t silver from 67.1m, including 7.6m at 3.2 per cent copper and 12.2g/t silver from 70.1m downhole.
A third hole put into the Cyclone area, but outside the south-west margin of the currently-defined resource, nailed an intriguing 15.2m going 1.4 copper and 2.4g/t silver from 103.6m including 6.1m running 2.7 per cent copper and 2.7g/t silver from 108.2m downhole. The last 6.1m intercept in that hole also includes 1.5m at a tidy 6.4 per cent copper from 109.73m.
The multiple envelopes of the Cyclone resource are hosted by the Allen Bay Formation and appear to be truncated against the northern side of the regional-scale graben-bounding fault. A graben is typically a major, regional-scale and often elongate linear block of rock downfaulted within two or more usually normal faults, with respect to its bounding rocks.
Importantly, in the Storm context, the entire intercept in the third hole is deeper than any of the Cyclone resource envelopes. While it lies directly opposite the Cyclone deposit, its sits on the southern side of the fault within the downfaulted block.
American West believes its latest intercept signifies potential upside not only for the Cyclone deposit, but also for the entire project. Significantly, almost no exploration has been committed to the central graben area, but with the deep intercept from 103.6m, the company has all but proven that copper-silver mineralisation exists within that zone.
Management has also put in resource upgrade and extension drillholes at its Chinook deposit, which is located at a complexly-faulted part of the southern graben margin.
The best hole to date intersected 3.1m at 1.3 per cent copper and 6g/t silver from 38.1m including 1.5m going 2.3 per cent copper and 10g/t silver from 38.1m. Another separate 1.5m runs 2.4 per cent copper and 3g/t silver from 89.9m, with several other included intercepts on the way down.
American West Metals managing director Dave O’Neill said: “The first assays from the summer drilling program have been received and continue to impress, confirming further intervals of high-grade copper mineralisation within and around the Cyclone and Chinook deposits. Drilling at Cyclone continues to demonstrate exceptional continuity and upgrade potential of the resource, with high-grade copper intersected in a number of the drill holes.”
The current mineral resource estimate for Cyclone is 12.1 million tonnes at 1.2 per cent copper and 3.4g/t silver and the deposit remains open in all directions. Results from the current resource definition and expansion drilling, which are expected within a month, will inform an updated JORC-compliant mineral resource estimate that is slated to be delivered at the end of the year.
American West says it is continuing RC drilling in the Storm area with the track-mounted drill rig on resource extension and high-priority geophysical targets, while its fly RC drill rig has now moved on to the Tempest prospect and its diamond drilling is testing deep exploration targets in the Storm area.
Additionally, the company is running deep electromagnetic (EM) surveys in the Storm area and will then move to the Tornado and Blizzard copper prospect areas, while its environmental monitoring, archaeology and survey activities for the year’s program are ongoing.
The discovery of deep, thick intervals of copper sulphides south of the northern graben fault margin in step-out drilling has major implications for the overall copper endowment of the project, by increasing the number of prospective horizons and the potential for significant lateral extension of the horizons that have already been intersected.
The drilling especially highlights the growth potential of the Cyclone deposit. With the discovery south of the graben fault, drilling assays starting to come in, resource drilling progressing rapidly and exploration drilling ramping up, the company expects to deliver some solid news flow in the coming weeks.
It will be fascinating to see how each of the existing targets progress and also how the inevitable deep exploration of the mostly-untested central graben zone will play out.
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By Doug Bright
