American West Metals has continued a winning streak at its Storm project in Canada, pulling up an 18m intercept of visual copper sulphides in its latest diamond drillhole.
The company reports a 100 per cent strike rate in its latest probe and says the new hit extends copper mineralisation 2km from the closest deep drillhole, hinting that it has tapped into a major belt-scale sediment-hosted copper system.
American West’s fourth diamond drillhole was designed to test a strong gravity anomaly along strike of its third Thunder zone discovery hole that yielded more than 76 metres of visual copper sulphide mineralisation from only 32m downhole and sent its share price on a tear.
The first hole delivered 45.5m of visual sulphides, with 30.5m of breccia-style visual copper sulphide from 45m downhole and a further 15m of visual breccia and vein-style copper sulphide from 332m. The second hole hit another 37m of visual breccia-style copper sulphide from 333m.
While final assay results provide the ultimate benchmark for success, the company says copper-rich minerals including chalcocite and chalcopyrite have both been noted between 339m and 357.5m downhole, correlating with the prospective sediment-hosted copper horizon intersected in all the previous diamond drillholes from the current field season.
Management says drilling was also targeting one of the main interpreted structures in the area – the Southern Graben Fault. Evidence of minor copper has been noted in American West’s latest diamond hole, which bodes well for its geological model that suggests the structure provides a fertile fluid pathway for further copper mineralisation.
Interestingly, the company says the drillhole intersected minor copper sulphides in the fault zone more than 700m along strike from the near-surface, high-grade copper mineralisation at the 3500N Zone, where historical drilling pulled up 35m averaging 1.73 per cent copper.
Management says the structure appears to provide a conduit between the lower sediment-hosted and upper, near-surface copper mineralisation.
American West Metals managing director David O'Neill said: “The sediment-hosted copper intersection within ST23-04 sits within the same stratigraphic package intersected in previous diamond drill holes completed by American West, and is over 2km from the closest deep drill hole. With every drill hole that has targeted the large gravity features hitting copper sulphides our confidence in the large-scale potential of the copper system continues to grow.”
While the drill rods keep spinning, plumbing key copper targets in the Storm area, the company has been beavering away sharpening all the tools in its exploration tool belt.
Ongoing density analysis of the diamond drill core indicates the sulphide-rich horizons are the only plausible source for a bunch of gravity anomalies modelled from a recently-completed high-resolution ground gravity survey, giving rise to a plethora of high-priority fault-bounded gravity targets that seem ripe for the picking.
Also, an intriguing conductor that extends through an area of 880m by 470m, directly south of the company’s latest diamond drillhole, was lit up during last year’s fixed loop electromagnetic (FLEM) survey. Similar conductive anomalies at Storm have recently been confirmed by drilling as copper sulphide mineralisation, presenting another key target.
The constant flow of good news coming from the American West camp is clearly resonating with investors, with the company’s stock trading at an all-time high of 35 cents earlier this month, skyrocketing from June’s low of 5.3 cents.
And with the rods still spinning, a swag of samples at the lab awaiting analysis and plenty of smoke rising from its latest diamond drilling probe, American West looks geared up to continue delivering the good news.
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By Helen Barling
