Faraday Copper drills 1.34% copper over 103.64 metres at Copper Creek, Arizona
Faraday Copper Corp. [TSX-FDY; OTCQX-CPPKF] reported results of the gold program from the Keel zone at the Copper Creek project in Arizona, United States. The results support the potential to unlock significant value through the contribution of payable gold in concentrate in future Mineral Resource Estimates (MRE).
Paul Harbidge, President and CEO, commented: “The results show that the Keel Zone hosts the largest gold-bearing domain on the property to date. For context, the Keel underground zone represents approximately 60 million tonnes of the 330 million tonnes in the current underground mineral resource. This newly acquired data, together with our recent metallurgical results, supports the potential for the addition of gold in concentrate as a significant source of by-product revenue that would increase the value of Copper Creek.”
Highlights: Doubled the gold assay coverage in the Keel Zone with 1,017 new gold assays, in addition to the 1,062 historical gold assays. Examples of intercepts with new gold assays and re-assayed copper from historical core include:103.64 m at 1.34% copper and 0.28 g/t gold from 667.51 metres in drill hole LM-2; 85.35 m at 0.91% copper and 0.11 g/t gold from 652.27 m in drill hole LM-1; and 272.19 m at 0.47% copper and 0.05 g/t gold from 921.11 m in drill hole RMK-12-068.
Gold and copper are correlated on an intercept basis with an overall ratio2 of approximately 1:9 gold (g/t):copper (%) at the Keel Zone.
Recently completed metallurgical test work supports gold recoveries exceeding 80% to a payable grade in the copper concentrate from the Keel Zone. As part of the gold program, copper was re-assayed and the results confirmed historical data, providing additional confidence in the database.
The Keel Zone represents approximately 60 million tonnes of the 330 million tonnes of the current underground MRE. The Keel Zone contains several domains of mineralization with the dominant style including bornite and chalcopyrite that occur disseminated and in miarolitic cavities, as well as in porphyry-style veins
In addition, chalcopyrite-rich breccias crosscut the magmatic cupola mineralization. The Keel Zone is located below the Mammoth breccia and together these areas form the most continuous vertical mineralization (over 1,400 m) discovered on the project to date.
Gold mineralization within Keel is zoned, with the greatest enrichment occurring in the magmatic cupola associated with bornite (Figure 3). Metallurgical test work, reported in a news release dated February 26, 2024, on bornite-bearing samples from the Keel Zone suggests that gold recoveries average over 80% and gold has the potential to be payable in a copper concentrate.
Historically, only a small portion of samples analyzed for copper were also analyzed for gold. The company has been analyzing archived sample material for gold with the aim of increasing data coverage for potential inclusion in future MRE updates. In addition to gold assays, samples have been re-analyzed for copper, silver and molybdenum to further validate historical results. Assay results for Childs Aldwinkle, Copper Prince and the Keel Zone have been released.
Additional zones in the current MRE are being evaluated for gold assay data coverage as the company intends to include gold in future MRE updates. Further, gold continues to be analyzed as part of the ongoing Phase III drill program which has the following objectives: Expanding the MRE;Better delineating high-grade, mineralized zones; and reconnaissance drilling on new targets.
The current focus of the Phase III drilling program is on shallow breccia-hosted mineralization at American Eagle. This follows the approval by the Bureau of Land Management of the company’s Notice of Intent, as reported in a news release dated May 2, 2024.
The Copper Creek Project is one of the largest undeveloped copper projects in North America with significant district scale exploration potential.