White Cliff Minerals has kicked up a swag of uber high-grade copper sniffs, tipping the scales at a record-breaking 64 per cent, giving hints of a large-scale copper discovery at its Rae project in Canada’s Coppermine River area.
The company collected about 100 samples in its maiden rock chip sampling program over five prospective exploration districts targeting wide-spread copper mineralisation.
Located in northern Canada, the Coppermine River area has a rich history of copper use and exploration. The local Inuit worked and traded native copper for centuries before coming to European attention in the late 17th Century.
First staked in 1929, the discovery of several high-grade surface deposits of copper in 1966 set off the largest staking rush in Canada’s history with over 40,000 claims lodged by more than 70 different companies.
Fast forward more than 100 years and with much of the region free and available for staking – White Cliff has been a first mover in the region laying claim to two premium patches at Rae in the Nunavut state and the Great Bear project in the neighbouring Northwest Territories ahead of the latest land grab following recent record high copper prices.
A suite of impressive copper, silver and gold results have been received from the first trio of targets at Vision, Wanda and Hulk.
The chart-topping 64 per cent copper hit stems from the Don prospect in the Vision exploration district where multiple parallel outcropping massive chalcocite veins have been mapped over an area of more than two square kilometres.
Other notable results at Don include 62 per cent, 50.48 per cent and 43.77 per cent copper with accompanying silver grades peaking at 223 grams per tonne.
Less than five kilometres along strike at the Pat prospect, assays returned up to 55 per cent copper and 46 g/t silver from specimens collected from a quartz-bornite-chalcocite vein which has been sampled over a 400m strike length.
The Vision District is a 10 km-long structural corridor sited along a sub-parallel dilutional jog which the company believes has provided the necessary depositional environment for copper and precious metal accumulation.
While it is early days in the exploration process, management suggests the Don and Pat prospects could be contiguous giving rise to a whopping 5km district-scale copper-rich horizon.
The key to solving the bedrock puzzle could lie in the upcoming results of a recently completed airborne geophysical survey.
White Cliff has undertaken one of Canada’s largest aerial surveys covering a mammoth 3,573 line-km of MobileMT geophysics at its Rae project and the nearby Great Bear Lakes project. MobileMT is the latest innovation in airborne electromagnetic technology with the capacity to probe the earth’s surface to depths of about one kilometre and detect contrasts in the subsurface geology.
Copper grades between 3.56 and 9.63 per cent were returned at the Wanda districts where quartz-chalcocite veining was sampled over 120m of strike along a brecciated-style flow top to outcropping basalts.
While the extraordinarily high copper results at Vision and Wanda are a pleasant distraction, the company’s primary focus at its Rae project is the Hulk district. Extensive copper staining has been mapped coincident with an intriguing 16km long and 4km wide magnetic anomaly that appears to trace the reactive basal sequence of the Rae Group sedimentary basin. One sample collected along the trend returned 1.65 per cent copper indicating copper-rich hydrothermal fluids have permeated the sedimentary basin.
The latest haul is hot on the heels a suite of extraordinary silver grades the junior explorer recently racked up, reaching an astonishing 75,439 grams per tonne, from its nearby Great Bear Lake project.
White Cliff managing director Troy Whittaker says: “These two projects are proving to be world-class exploration opportunities. Rae and Great Bear are located in a tier one mining and investment jurisdiction, on the mainland, with significant infrastructure already in place.”
With the last round of assays from Rae expected in the coming weeks, ahead of the results of the extensive MobileMT survey expected late this year, White Cliff is pondering which extraordinary drill target will be the first to feel the bite of the drill bit in 2025.
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By Helen Barling
