Eagle Mountain Mining Limited (ASX:EM2) has identified a number of high-grade copper and gold targets to follow-up at its new Oracle Ridge mine in Arizona, USA.
CEO, Tim Mason, said the company’s review of historic data from Oracle Ridge highlighted the area’s potential to host high-grade copper and significant gold and silver mineralisation.
The high-grade copper with significant gold and silver at Oracle Ridge is very exciting as grade can have a significant influence on the value of mining operations,” Mr Mason said.
“We plan to investigate the potential size of these zones using modern geophysics, quality geological modelling and drilling.
“The amount of data available to us from the last 50 years of exploration and mining at Oracle Ridge is substantial.
“We are the first company to consolidate all the historical information and this work will give us a new understanding of the geology and mineralisation at Oracle Ridge.
“We will leverage this understanding to prepare a new JORC compliant Mineral Resource Estimate and drill the best possible targets.”
The Oracle Ridge project includes a NI43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) of 11.7 million tonnes at 1.57% Cu, 17.47 g/t Ag and 0.18 g/t Au.
The project has significant infrastructure in place including approximately18 kilometres of underground development, access roads, tailings facility, underground electrical and water services. Eagle Mountain acquired 80% of Oracle Ridge in November 2019.
Since mining ceased in 1996, there has been no modern exploration applied and very minimal drilling beyond the defined MRE. Eagle Mountain’s exploration objective at Oracle Ridge is to both define extensions to the known Resources along with locating the source of the existing skarn mineralisation. Copper skarn mineralisation is commonly associated with porphyry systems, however the location of the potential porphyry system at Oracle Ridge is not known and is a key exploration focus for the company.
The existing Oracle Ridge mine dataset includes 618 drill holes for over 76,000 metres of drilling and 11,553 assays.
Previous drilling at Oracle Ridge has delineated multiple zones of high-grade copper mineralisation, along with significant gold and silver.
Mr Mason said the company will update the mineralisation models as part of the planned updated JORC compliant Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE). These models will include a focus on the potential high-grade zones of the mineralisation.
The company has identified a priority drill target in a less explored area of the project where high-grade intercepts such as 7.7m at 5.11% Cu, 0.72 g/t Au and 55.83 g/t Ag and 5.2m at 6.44% Cu, 0.22 g/t Au and 62.9 g/t Ag, was not included in the previous mine resource.
As part of the plan to define the geological models, Eagle Mountain is digitising additional detailed information for over 400 drill holes that were never included in the Oracle Ridge database. While the assay information was included, other valuable information such as detailed lithology and alteration were not included.
