8 September 2022
“These assay results from the 2750N Zone are impressive and again demonstrate the quality of the mineralized system,” stated Thomas Ullrich, CEO of Aston Bay. “These are spectacular copper grades over significant thicknesses very near surface. This increases our confidence in the continuity of the mineralization and confirms the potential to define a shallow copper resource that can support a low cost, small footprint direct shipping product mining operation.
“In addition to moving the 2750N Zone toward development, a compelling discovery story is emerging with the immense potential demonstrated by the intersection of a zone of sediment hosted style of copper mineralization in drill hole ST22-10. Assay results for that hole are still pending, but confirmation of copper would validate our predictive exploration model with significant implications for the potential copper endowment in this region. We eagerly await those results.”
ST22-02 was drilled to a downhole depth of 155m and was designed to test the continuity of the copper mineralization in the central 2750N Zone (Figure 1).
The drill hole intersected a broad, 83m zone of vein and fracture style copper sulfide mineralization from approximately 5m downhole. The volume of copper sulfide throughout the interval is variable and is controlled by the intensity of rock fracturing within the broader fault zone.
The stronger mineralization in ST22-02 (and throughout the 2750N Zone) consists of massive and semi-massive chalcocite and/or bornite and is hosted within large fractures and breccia zones (Table 1 & Figure 2).
The drill core from ST22-02 will be used for beneficiation and metallurgical test work to produce a direct shipping product (DSP) from the 2750N Zone mineralization.
Table 1 summarizes the significant intersections from ST22-02. Intersections are expressed as downhole widths and are interpreted to be approximately 90% of true width. A cut-off grade of 0.5% copper is used to define a significant intersection and is based on ore mineralogy, mineralization habit and expected beneficiation performance.
About the Storm Copper and Seal Zinc-Silver Projects, Nunavut
The Nunavut property consists of 117 contiguous mining claims and six prospecting permits covering an area of approximately 302,725 hectares on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada. The Storm Project comprises both the Storm Copper Project, a high-grade sediment hosted copper discovery (intersections including 110m* @ 2.45% Cu from surface and 56.3m* @ 3.07% Cu from 12.2m) as well as the Seal Zinc Deposit (intersections including 14.4m* @ 10.58% Zn, 28.7g/t Ag from 51.8m and 22.3m* @ 23% Zn, 5.1g/t Ag from 101.5m). Additionally, there are numerous underexplored targets within the 120-kilometre strike length of the mineralized trend, including the Tornado copper prospect where 10 grab samples yielded >1% Cu up to 32% Cu in gossans.
See full news release here.