The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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American West Metals launches 20,000-meter drill program at high-grade copper project in Nunavut. American West Metals Ltd. April 22 announced the start of a more than 20,000-meter resource expansion and exploration drill program at its high-grade Storm Copper project in Nunavut. "We are very pleased to report that the drilling and exploration program for 2024 is now in full swing at the Storm Copper project in Nunavut, Canada," said American West Metals Managing Director...
Early results from MLEM survey unveiling resource expansion targets at high-grade copper project. American West Metals Ltd. May 7 reported that preliminary results from a moving loop electromagnetic (MLEM) geophysical survey at Storm has identified new anomalies that indicate strong potential for resource expansion at this high-grade copper project in Nunavut. "The initial data from the Moving Loop Electromagnetic (MLEM) survey has been received and is highlighting new...
American West plans to expand high-grade resources, test discovery targets this year. American West Metals Ltd. Feb. 26 announced plans for 22,000 meters of resource expansion, definition, and exploration drilling this year at its high-grade Storm Copper project on Nunavut's Somerset Island. In mid-February, American West reported the first-ever industry-compliant resource estimate for Storm. According to this calculation, four deposits within a roughly 10-square-kilometer...
Undertake an adventure through the riveting tale of Nellie Cashman, perhaps one of the most inspiring women of the 18th century. Perhaps no other individual could be regarded as true an American pioneer as Irish immigrant Ellen "Nellie" Cashman. Easily regarded as a quintessential gold mining stampeder with her acumen in business and the nose to sniff out opportunity, she traveled the width and breadth of America, leaving success and hope in her wake. Known as the Angel of... Full story
Epworth property hosts high-grade sediment-hosted copper mineralization reminiscent of Storm Copper and the Central African Copper Belt Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. March 1 announced that it has the option to earn an 80% interest in Epworth, a project that covers a 74-kilometer- (46 miles) long trend of high-grade copper, silver, and zinc mineralization with accompanying gold, cobalt, and lead in eastern Nunavut. Located 80 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of Kugluktuk, a Nunavut...
American West Metals Ltd.'s 63-hole resource definition and exploration drill program at Storm Copper in 2023 has culminated in an inaugural resource estimate containing 452 million pounds of copper and 1.9 million oz of silver at this high-grade project on Nunavut's Somerset Island. Since optioning the project from Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. in 2021, American West has been systematically expanding the near-surface high-grade copper zones identified within a roughly...
With Donlin Gold reentering the feasibility study stage, Ambler Metals waiting on the reevaluation of the permit needed for a road to the Ambler Mining District, and an overall lack of investment capital, mineral exploration spending in Alaska dropped during 2023. While the overall sector was down, there continued to be some bright spots – most notably, a growing interest in Alaska's critical minerals potential. In July, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Graphite One I... Full story
Is it time for BC, Yukon, Alaska to forge an alliance to unlock critical mineral wealth, usher in new era of prosperity in the 21st century? The extremely mineral-rich geology that sweeps in a roughly 1,500-mile (2,600 kilometers) arc from the southern tip of British Columbia's Golden Triangle, through the Yukon, and onward to Alaska's west coast does not recognize the borders it spans. Likewise, the opportunities and challenges related to unlocking the precious, industrial, a... Full story
It is hard to decide what to get more excited about at American West Metals Ltd.'s Storm Copper project in Nunavut – the abundance of near surface high-grade copper mineralization with the potential to be upgraded to a direct shipping ore, or the much larger yet still high-grade sediment-hosted copper orebody being unveiled under the zones being outlined on the surface. Together, these zones on the Storm Copper project on Somerset Island in Canada's Arctic offer a potential s...
With a summer marred by unprecedented wildfires behind them, companies exploring the mineral-rich Northwest Territories are reporting impressive results from their 2023 programs. Seeking new deposits of valuable minerals, ranging from ever-popular diamonds and precious metals to recently designated "critical minerals," such as lithium, rare earth elements and zinc, a score of explorers took to the field across the territory. "An exciting new chapter is emerging for mining in t... Full story
As 2023 raced toward its final weeks, mining explorers working in Canada's northernmost territory wrapped up ambitious campaigns to identify new deposits of various lucrative minerals, ranging from cobalt to copper and gold to uranium. Both mineral production and exploration spending in Nunavut decreased in 2022 compared with the previous year's totals, and another drop is expected for 2023. Natural Resources Canada earlier projected a 28% decrease in planned spending for... Full story
After establishing its position as a leading zinc-lead-silver explorer in northern Canada, Fireweed Metals Corp. set out in late 2022 to broaden its focus in both geography and commodities. Partly defying the age-old adage to stick to what you know, the longtime explorer of the district-scale Macmillan Pass zinc-lead-silver project ventured across the border into Northwest Territories to acquire two projects. While the Gayna River zinc-lead-silver-gallium-germanium project is...
American West Metals Ltd. Nov. 27 reported that surface samples with as much as 38.2% copper and 30.8% zinc have been collected from Tempest, a prospect about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the high-grade Storm Copper targets drilled this year on a 219,257-hectare (541,796 acres) property being explored by the company on Nunavut's Somerset Island. This district-scale property covers the Storm Copper project, a roughly 100-kilometer (60 miles) trend prospective for copper,...
From Pentagon's $37.5M grant to Graphite One to emerging nickel deposits, critical minerals are a hot AK mining topic. With Washington investing billions of dollars into ensuring safe and secure critical mineral supply chains, many mining companies are focusing more sharply on unlocking Alaska's potential to be a domestic source of the 50 minerals and metals critical to America's economic well-being and national security. The growing list of critical minerals being sought... Full story
American West Metals Ltd. Nov. 6 announced that its 2023 drilling has tapped more impressive near-surface mineralization in expansion targets at the 4100N Zone on its Storm Copper project in Nunavut. Located within the far northern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the Storm Copper project covers more than 4,000 square kilometers (1,544 square miles) of the Polaris mineral district. This year, the company aimed for up to 10,000 meters of reverse circulation drilling to establish...
Lightning Ridge discovery hole is further evidence of the camp-scale potential at the high-grade Storm copper project. American West Metals Ltd. Oct. 11 said that new high-grade copper intercepts encountered with drilling at the Lightning Ridge discovery and 2200N Zone underscore the camp-scale discovery and mining potential across the 850-square-mile (2,200 square kilometers) Storm Copper project on Somerset Island in northern Nunavut. To further understand this...
Like many other northern regions, Canada's North was settled because of its mineral resources. When the Canadian Dominion Government first purchased its arctic regions from the British Crown in the late 1800s, the Northwest Territories was seen as a vast stretch of cold, inhospitable land and was thus largely ignored at the time. However, due to the Klondike Gold Rush, the future of these northern lands would change forever. These days, a new rush has arisen, a white gold...
Data Mine North launched the first edition of Critical Minerals Alliances in 2021 with the hopes that this annual magazine would play some small role in helping to build alliances "that are not crippled by irreconcilable differences between organizations and individuals that do not always see eye-to-eye but strengthened by a spectrum of ideologies with a common goal – a healthy, prosperous, and exciting future for humankind." Today, the alliances envisioned by the Data Mine N... Full story
As the White House continues to dole out hundreds of billions of dollars to position America as the global leader in clean energy and digital technologies, Beijing initiates a strategy to put America in check with the global economy equivalent of pawns. These pawns in the technology chess match between the U.S. and China are gallium and germanium, a pair of semiconductor metals used to make the computer chips essential to every facet of modern life. Before all the major news o... Full story
American West Metals Ltd. Sept. 26 reported that assays from three deep holes drilled at Storm confirm a new zone of near-surface, high-grade copper at the Thunder discovery, along with a large zone of deeper sediment-hosted copper mineralization associated with large gravity anomalies on this northern Nunavut project. The company's 2023 program involves reverse circulation drilling focused on defining a maiden Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant resource around...
From rare earths in Northern Maine to lithium in Southern California and graphite in Alaska, the U.S. Geological Survey is on a mission to discover minerals critical to the nation's economy and clean energy goals on American soil. Or, more accurately, under American soil. This nationwide endeavor is officially called the Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, but is better known as Earth MRI, a clever moniker that reflects the earth penetrating scans that are providing... Full story
Separating your plastics, paper, metals, and food waste has generally been a personal choice throughout most of modern recycling history. However, current demand for resources predicts we won't have enough to support net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Hence, now is the best time for consumers to become educated and self-determined with their buying power, manufacturers to begin considering recycling as part of the initial design, and a new circular economy that resurrects a tr... Full story
Aluminum has been classified as critical by the United States, European Union, Canada, and even China. At first glance, one may wonder how such a ubiquitous metal could possibly be critical. The answer is simply that aluminum is so widely used that supply, if endangered, could devastate an economy. In 2020, the World Bank identified aluminum as a "high-impact" and "cross-cutting" metal in all existing and potential green technologies. In spite of this, due to high energy... Full story
As the cracks in the wall continue to chill the bones of an ill-prepared American clean-energy economy, attention has been paid to nearly every facet imaginable to obtain the minerals critical to fuel a zero-carbon future; however, all has seemingly been quiet on the unconventional front. Repeated time and time again during the ongoing transition, U.S. policymakers are becoming increasingly concerned about the overreliance on China for the minerals and metals essential to... Full story
Still overshadowed by lithium but no less significant, cobalt falls within a unique category as a critical mineral not only for its properties but also for its controversial supply. As a fundamental component necessary for nickel-cobalt-manganese (NMC) lithium-ion batteries, cobalt warranted its place as a critical mineral vital to the zero-carbon transition due to the necessity of those batteries to power a clean, emission-free future. Its critical uses, however, go far... Full story
