A first batch of rock chip samples revealing an eye-watering 42.6 per cent copper and an impressive 38.2 grams per tonne gold at White Cliff Minerals’ newly-named Phoenix district, within its Great Bear Lake project (GBLP) in northern Canada, has management convinced it could be on the precipice of not one, but two major, high-grade copper discoveries in the near-term.
The rock chip samples taken during a maiden field program at the GBLP across the iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) systems of the company’s Glacier and Cleaver targets – which have now been coined as the Phoenix district – returned widespread, high-grade copper, gold and silver mineralisation across an area of more than 3.4km by 1.9km.
Management believes it is now on the trail of a bigger-than-expected hydrothermal system, with historic sporadic results not truly outlining the continuity and significant lateral extent of the copper mineralisation in the area.
The Phoenix district, which is the first and most promising of five areas tested by initial field programs at the GBLP, features the Glacier and Cleaver IOCG systems. The two significant copper systems are less than 1.9km apart and are so big in scale that they were able to be identified by White Cliff via satellite.
At the Glacier system, a total of 46 samples were taken along a 1.1km east-west trend, returning copper values up to 42.6 per cent, gold running 7.96g/t and silver samples up to 310g/t from intensely potassic-altered andesites rocks.
The Cleaver IOCG system was sampled within a kilometre-scale gossan that was formed by the oxidation of pyrite within strong phyllic alteration. The Cleaver IOCG, which also features broad zones of visible copper-bearing chalcopyrite alterations and pyrite at surface, had a total of 30 samples retained.
Samples returned copper grading up to 6.31 per cent, silver at 249g/t and gold up to 0.72g/t. They are results that management says represent a significant discovery at Cleaver in just its maiden field season.
White Cliff Minerals managing director Troy Whittaker said: "Importantly, this first field program validates our strategy to pivot to the untapped resources of Canada’s far north, in the ‘scramble for what’s left’. As resource nationalism creates and will continue to create uncertainty over future supply lines, operating in Canada allows us to sleep at night. We are doing what we said we would do – identifying opportunities and delivering results.”
The company believes a significant mineralisation opportunity also remains in scattered epithermal systems related to the bigger hydrothermal, metal-rich area at Phoenix. A 215m-long, north-south-outcropping, sulphide-rich quartz vein near the Glacier IOCG, known as Glacier Gold, returned high-grade samples up to an impressive 38.2g/t gold, 76.5g/t silver and a substantial 4.16 per cent copper.
Glacier Gold, combined with the uranium-rich Rust target some 700m to the south, are two currently-identified epithermal systems that could lead to several smaller-scale mining opportunities.
Management anticipates more assays to soon trickle in from the balance of samples at the GBLP. Following the recent results, further samples from the Spud Bay, Coastal Cu, Thompson and Sparkplug Lake epithermal targets, in addition to the K2 IOCG and Mile Lake Skarn targets are to follow.
MobileMT surveys to test prospects for a conductive response have also been completed across the GBLP. Given the level of mineralisation found at surface, the company believes the surveys represent a good first-pass exploration technique and add yet another important layer to helping it prioritise the many targets emerging across its greater project area.
The GBLP sits 240km south-west of White Cliff’s Coppermine project in Canada’s Nunuvut territory and now features some 2900 square kilometres of ground within the IOCG-prospective Great Bear magmatic zone (GBMZ).
The company is understood to be the single-biggest holder of mineral exploration claims in Canada’s Northwest Territories where uranium potential sits alongside IOCG mineralisation. The company describes the GBMZ as an extensively hydrothermally-altered and mineralised Proterozoic continental andesitic stratovolcano-plutonic complex, with the potential to host Canada’s most prospective IOCG and uranium mineralisation.
The GBMZ, where the GBLP lies, was assessed by the Northwest Territories Geosciences office as having the greatest potential for substantial-scale IOCG and uranium mineral deposits in Canada.
With White Cliff having already identified four such IOCG targets and confirmed high-grade copper in two of them at the Phoenix district, it seems the geosciences office and that company may both be onto something. And Phoenix’s priority for drill-testing will no doubt be rising up the priority list following today’s impressive rock chip results.
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By Andrew Todd
