The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – May 31, 2024
A mineralized outcrop at the CU-TAR prospect at Nunavut Copper, where a continuous rock sample collected in 2014 averaged 10.3% copper and 5g/t silver.
White Cliff Minerals Ltd. May 28 said it is excited about carrying out discovery level exploration of the highly prospective Nunavut Copper-Gold-Silver project in the northern Canadian territory.
Lying near the Northwest Territories border, the Nunavut Copper-Gold-Silver project covers 805 square kilometers of (311 square miles) highly prospective mineral showings with massive bornite-chalcocite, chalcopyrite, and associated calcite, hematite, native copper and chlorite.
White Cliff says the project represents a district-scale opportunity underpinned by the presence of both high-grade volcanic-hosted copper-silver lodes and the prospect of large tonnage sedimentary-hosted copper deposits.
"Previous operators proved the presence of high-grade copper veins, however, there was no sufficient follow up drill testing providing us with the opportunity for considerable exploration upside," said White Cliff Minerals Managing Director Troy Whittaker.
The Australia-based mineral exploration company says its summarization of the historical work has identified several priority target locations to begin exploration at Nunavut.
The initial discovery targets include:
• Don – Lying near the southern end of White Cliff's primary block of Nunavut claims, Don represents an outcropping out lode system where the highest historical copper and silver were collected from the project. Samples collected from the northernmost vein at Don returned grades as high as 30.7% copper; 8.29% copper, and 194 grams per metric ton silver; and 7.84% copper and 23 g/t silver.
• CU-TAR – Located on a smaller block of claims about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Don, CU-TAR hosts at least four copper-silver lodes within northeast trending vertical structures cutting the stacked basaltic flows of the Coppermine River Group, a geologic formation known for its extremely high-grade copper. Historic grab samples collected from CU-TAR returned grades as high as 35.54% copper and 17g/t silver. A 2.5-meter-long continuous chip sample of an outcrop on this property averaged 10.3% copper and 5g/t silver.
• HALO – Lying about five kilometers (three miles) west of CU-TAR, HALO hosts a north-south trending zone of copper mineralization (chalcocite-chalcopyrite-bornite-malachite). A five-meter rock chip collected at HALO in 2014 returned averaged 4.34% copper and 5.4 g/t silver.
"Despite there being inference and description of substantial strike extents across the project, only single samples were taken from limited occurrences," said Whittaker said. "These single occurrences provide us with a substantial foundation to undertake activities looking at district scale potential."
White Cliff plans to begin its exploration of Nunavut Copper-Gold-Silver with an aerial MobileMT geophysical survey, along with reconnaissance exploration that will include rock chip and channel sampling of outcrops on the property.
The Australian explorer is also carrying out its inaugural exploration of Great Bear Lake, a uranium project in Northwest Territories with significant silver, gold, copper, zinc, nickel, and cobalt potential.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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