First Drill Programme at the Navarre Creek Project is now Underway
Phoenix Copper Ltd (AIM: PXC, OTCQX: PXCLF), the AIM-quoted USA-focused base and precious metals emerging producer and exploration company, is pleased to announce that the Company’s 2023 drilling programme is now underway at the Navarre Creek exploration project in Custer County, Idaho.
The 2023 drilling programme marks a new phase of work on the gold exploration project located approximately five kilometres (‘km’) west of the Company’s Empire Mine copper oxide deposit.
The 2023 Navarre Creek drilling programme is scheduled to comprise up to 60 reverse-circulation (‘RC’) drill holes from 30 drill pads (“Drill Programme”) located at targets throughout the Navarre Creek claim block.
The programme is expected to build on the Company’s current understanding of the area from previous exploration activities including geologic mapping, surface geochemistry, airborne hyperspectral mineral imaging, and geomagnetic ground surveys.
Ryan McDermott, Chief Executive Officer, said: “Based on our team’s exploration work up to this point, the results of the fieldwork conducted at Navarre Creek are extremely prospective. The area exhibits geological traits consistent with hydrothermal precious metal deposition common in volcanic terrains in the Western United States. These geological characteristics, along with the area’s hydrothermally altered brecciated sedimentary units, make Navarre Creek a primary target for precious metal exploration. As always, I look forward to reporting assay results as soon as they are available.
Background on Navarre Creek
During the 2021 field season, Phoenix contracted Magee Geophysical Services to acquire approximately 169 line-km of total field magnetic measurements at the Company’s Navarre Creek project and SpecTIR, LLC of Reno, Nevada to complete an airborne hyperspectral survey of the same Navarre Creek area to identify prospective exploration targets in an area, many of which are largely concealed by glacial till.
The ground magnetics survey looked specifically for magnetite and magnetic-bearing minerals, some of which have been identified in limited outcroppings, while the hyperspectral imaging helps to identify alteration minerals often associated with precious metal deposition.
Hyperspectral imaging incorporates a small airplane with mounted infrared lights and sensors to detect a wide range of wavelengths, mineral absorption and reflectance within the target area. The wavelength data collected in this survey are VNIR (Visible and Near-Infrared), SWIR (Short-Wave Infrared), and LWIR (Long-Wave Infrared). The human eye can detect wavelengths (colours) from 390 nanometers (‘nm’) to 700nm. The VNIR and SWIR sensors collected wavelength data from 390nm to 2,450nm, while the LWIR sensors ranged from 8,000nm to 12,000nm.
The Navarre Creek project is located within an intrusive dome complex, where the magnetic components in overlying volcanic lithologies are destroyed by silicic alteration associated with steam-heated, acidic, and oxidised hydrothermal fluids. The survey highlighted several such areas including the Lehman Creek fault, one or more porphyry plugs, and several contacts/faults.
The survey identified volcanic associated alteration that is both acidic and of fairly high temperature as evidenced by pyrophyllite and dickite. As would be expected in the Challis Volcanic Field, the white mica is Al-rich (paragenetic) and also shows zoned crystallinity patterns, typical of intermediate-to-high sulfidation systems and is likely proximal to a magmatic heat source. The presence of iron oxide associated with some of these zones adds prospectivity. The alteration pattern is useful in developing an exploration model to optimise future drill targets.
During the summer of 2020, Konnex Resources’ exploration team previously mapped and sampled the Company’s Navarre Creek gold property, which was then comprised of 2,420 acres of unpatented mining claims, located approximately 5km north-northwest of the Empire Mine. 90 rock chip and grab samples were collected in the hydrothermally altered volcanic rocks that make up the Navarre Creek claims and sent to ALS Laboratories in Reno, USA for geochemical analysis.
Of the 90 samples, 53 were above the detection limit for gold with a high of 0.569 grammes per tonne (‘g/t’), and 25 above the detection limit for silver. There was also a strong correlation between elevated gold values and elevated antimony values, typical of epithermal gold and silver systems in the western US. With the exception of one sample, all samples with a gold value greater than 0.1 g/t occurred within the same alteration type, that being predominantly a jasperoid-hosted quartz stockwork and micro-veining system. This provides valuable information for future sampling and drill targeting. The quartz stockworking and micro-veining appear to occur predominantly in felsic volcanic tuff units in the Navarre Creek area. One anomalous sample, 32519, registered a gold value of 0.387 g/t, in a magnetite skarn sample located on the southern end of the Navarre Creek claim block where the skarn body is exposed as subcrop through the surface volcanics tuffs. Additionally, the presence of limestone in surface float near the skarn sample location is evidence that the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks that occur at the Empire Mine may be near the surface. The Empire orebody is partly comprised of a magnetite skarn body hosted in Paleozoic limestone. It was also noted that volcanic outcropping across the Navarre Creek area is strongly weathered and highly leached to depths of two to four metres.
The Navarre Creek claim block now covers 3,577 acres (14.48 km²), representing over 6km of prospective strike length, including an area of secondary alteration thought to be epithermal in nature, with over 2.5km of highly brecciated, west-trending jasperoid intersecting argillically and silicically altered Eocene Challis volcanics.
