American West Metals drilling hits 13.5pc copper at Cyclone, uncovers new Squall find.
American West Metals drilling returns 13.5% copper assay at the Cyclone deposit
Drilling has also made the new Squall discovery south of the Thunder prospect
MLEM survey underway at the Tornado prospect, which hosts two previously identified EM anomalies.
Special Report: American West Metals’ drilling at its Storm project in Canada continues to be hugely successful with a >13% copper assay at the Cyclone deposit and intersecting the new Squall discovery.
The ongoing program has now exceeded 20,000m drilled with 128 reverse circulation holes and 14 diamond holes completed at the Storm and Tempest projects.
American West Metals (ASX:AW1) notes that recent holes have further highlighted the resource upgrade potential of the Cyclone deposit thanks to notable assays such as:
5m grading 13.5% copper and 23g/t silver from a down-hole depth of 54.9m, 3.1m at 2% copper and 8g/t silver from 85.3m and 1.5m at 1.8% copper and 3g/t silver from 109.7m (SR24-057); and
1m at 3.9% copper and 10.5g/t silver from 57.9m and 4.6m at 1.4% copper and 5g/t silver from 71.6m (SR24-035).
Additionally, hole SR24-031 returned an intersection of 27.4m at 1.1% copper and 3.5g/t silver from 96m outside of the current resources.
Meanwhile, drilling of a moving loop electromagnetic (MLEM) anomaly in an untested area south of the Thunder prospect has resulted in the intersection of strong visual copper sulphides from 181.4m to 182.9m down-hole.
The interval contains strong visual chalcocite hosted within dense breccias and veins, typical of the copper deposits at Storm.
While visual observations are in no way a replacement for laboratory assays, the find is nonetheless significant enough for the company to declare that it had made a new discovery named Squall.
Storm, in Canada’s northern Nunavut region, already hosts a near-surface resource of 17.5Mt at 1.2% copper and 3.4g/t silver.
Outstanding growth potential
“We are very pleased to report that we achieved two more significant milestones for the 2024 drilling program at Storm. The program has now exceeded the planned 20,000m of drilling, and we have made another significant copper discovery in the Storm area, now named ‘Squall’,” managing director Dave O’Neill said.
“Squall is the second new discovery of near-surface copper mineralisation in the Southern Graben Area this year and highlights the outstanding growth potential and still relatively untested nature of Storm.
“The latest assays also continue to highlight the quality of the known copper deposits with exceptional intervals with up to 13% Cu, and thick intervals of high-grade copper outside of the current resource envelope.”
Ongoing and upcoming activity
A deep-searching 400m MLEM survey is currently underway at the Tornado prospect where the company had previously identified two EM anomalies that are coincident with outcropping copper.
Previous drilling at Storm has confirmed the strong correlation between EM targets and high-grade copper sulphides.
AW1 is also drilling the 1300m by 500m EM anomaly south and below the Cirrus deposit with diamond holes planned to a depth of 600m.
RC drilling is also continuing at the Storm deposit with the track-mounted drill rig focusing on resource extension and high-priority geophysical targets while the fly RC rig has moved to the Tornado and Blizzard copper prospects.
Meanwhile, diamond drilling is underway to test deep exploration targets in the Storm area.
The company added that environmental monitoring, archaeology, and survey activities for the 2024 program have been completed, with final reports expected in the coming months.
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