Azure Minerals Limited (ASX: AZS) has made a high-grade copper discovery at its 100%-owned Alacrán Project in Sonora, Mexico.
Managing Director, Tony Rovira, said a new drilling campaign has successfully discovered high-grade copper mineralisation at the Gregors prospect and intersected further significant gold mineralisation at Mina San Simon.
Our exploration team has a strong and successful history of discovering new deposits at Alacrán,” Mr Rovira said.
“With this discovery of the buried copper mineralisation at Gregors, we are continuing to identify high-value precious and base metals targets, reinforcing the prospectivity of this exciting project and the technical skills of our exploration team.
“The discovery of strong copper mineralisation hosted by iron-rich breccia at Gregors is very promising, as there is a history of discovering and exploiting high-grade, copper-rich breccia pipes in the surrounding Cananea mining district, particularly at the nearby Cananea Copper Mine located 10km to the northwest.
“I’m looking forward to completing our interpretation of the results and recommencing drilling as soon as practicable.”
First-pass drilling at Gregors intersected a blind zone of disseminated copper sulphide mineralisation, returning:
- 6.0m @ 2.30% Cu within a wider zone of 30m @ 0.68% Cu from 22.5m; and
- 1.5m @ 7.03% Cu within a wider zone of 18m @ 0.96% Cu from 21.0m
A single hole drilled at the old San Simon mine intersected a wide zone of strong gold mineralisation of 21m @ 2.0g/t Au & 64g/t Ag from 19.5m; including 6.0m @ 3.35g/t Au.
The Gregors prospect was originally recognised by Azure’s geologists in early 2016 when mapping identified breccia and gossan outcropping over an area of approximately 100m x 100m.
The strongly iron-rich breccia and boxwork texture within the gossan suggested a sulphide-rich source, potentially representing base metal mineralisation. However, geochemical sampling of the outcrop returned only low grades of precious and base metals, downgrading the priority of the prospect at that time.
In late 2016, Azure flew an airborne VTEM geophysical survey over the entire Alacrán project area, and a small and discrete, reasonably intense electromagnetic (EM) response was detected coincident with the gossan outcrop. Modelling indicated the presence of a steep east-dipping EM conductor plate located beneath the gossan outcrop.
No further exploration was undertaken over this anomaly until late in 2019, when Azure regained full ownership and control of the Alacrán project from former partner Teck Resources. Detailed mapping, surface geochemical sampling and a ground EM survey were carried out over the gossan and the area of the VTEM anomaly in early 2020.
This identified faults and shearing and strong alteration within and around the gossan, and sampling returned weakly anomalous copper grades.
