Aston Bay and American West Metals Announce Two More Exceptional Discoveries at the Storm Copper Project, Canada

8 August 2023

(August 8, 2023) Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSXV: BAY) (OTCQB: ATBHF) ("Aston Bay" or the "Company”) reports two new significant copper sulfide mineralization intercepts from a diamond drill hole testing blind geophysical targets at the Storm Copper Project (“Storm” or the “Project”) on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada. The program, still underway, is being conducted by American West Metals Limited (“American West”), who are the project operator since entering an option agreement with Aston Bay in March 2021.

Highlights:

  • Diamond drill hole ST23-03 has discovered a new near-surface zone of mineralization and a deeper sediment hosted copper system in an underexplored area of the Storm Project
  • ST23-03 intersected two zones of visual copper sulfide mineralization:
    • 76m of visual heavily mineralized breccia to massive copper sulfide (chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite) between 32m and 108m downhole
    •  2m of visual breccia and dense vein style copper sulfide (chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite) between 273m and 275m downhole
  • The new zone of near-surface copper has been named ‘Thunder’
  • The deeper intersection is interpreted to correlate with the prospective sediment hosted copper horizon intersected earlier this season, and is the first recorded occurrence south of the Southern Graben Fault
  • The drill hole was targeting both a near-surface Moving Loop Electromagnetic (MLEM) plate and a deeper gravity anomaly close to the Southern Graben Fault
  • The drilling results confirm that these geophysical techniques are reliable targeting tools for copper sulfides at Storm
  • Diamond drilling continues on high-priority copper targets

“This discovery of a new, very thick, strongly mineralized intersection in the near-surface coupled with the intersection of a chalcocite-mineralized sediment hosted copper horizon at depth once again highlights the immense potential for new discoveries at Storm” stated Thomas Ullrich, CEO of Aston Bay.

“This booming intersection of massive copper sulfides and copper sulfide-filled breccias in the near-surface has been aptly named ‘Thunder.’ With clear similarities to the high-grade mineralization of the 2750N Zone located over 1km to the east, this zone points to the potential for additional high-grade near-surface resources to add to the delineation program currently underway.

“The deeper interval is the first intercept of chalcocite, bornite and chalcopyrite mineralization south of the Southern Graben Fault. This shows that metal-rich fluids are migrating along permeable horizons and precipitating high-copper content minerals on a large scale. This is just as the sediment hosted copper deposit model predicts and provides further evidence for the widespread nature of this much sought-after style of mineralization at Storm. 

“As well, the ability of gravity geophysics to find hidden mineralization, suggested by the previous targeting success in discovery of a sediment hosted horizon at a similar depth to the north of the graben underlying and west of the 4100N Zone earlier this program, is now firmly established. We have sediment hosted copper mineralization at Storm, and we have a way to find it. Additional ground surveys along 10km of strike are being planned as a priority for next spring."

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