Arizona Sonoran Copper Company Inc., an emerging US-based copper developer and near-term producer, has begun its initial 6 hole (3,658 m | 12,000 ft) drilling campaign at the Parks/Salyer property in Arizona.
Deposit Model of a Porphyry Copper Deposit (Modified from Lowell and Guilbert, 1970). Image Credit: Arizona Sonoran Copper Company Inc.
Located 1.3 miles down trend to the southwest from the Cactus Project on private land, the Company’s 100%-owned Parks/Salyer Project demonstrates the same geological characteristics as the Cactus Project. Parks/Salyer is part of the same high grade porphyry copper system as the Cactus Project and is also located within a northwest trending horst block of bedrock covered by later conglomerates.
Existing supporting data at Parks/Salyer includes an IP survey, historic IP anomalies, historic drilling, an ionic leach program diamond drill data as noted below.
Drilling Highlights (please see TABLE 1 below for full set of drilling results and FIGURES 1-3)
- 2020 ASCU drilling
- ECP-018: 126.8 m (416 ft) of 0.69% TCu of Enriched mineralization
- ECP-019: 47.9 m (157 ft) of 1.44% TCu of Enriched mineralization
- Historic ASARCO drilling
- S-200: 67.1 m (220 ft) of 0.88% Cu of Enriched mineralization
- S-201: 33.2 m (109 ft) of 0.86% Cu of Enriched mineralization
George Ogilvie, Arizona Sonoran President and CEO stated, “We are very excited to be commencing our 2022 exploration program for Parks/Salyer. The current PEA and mineral resource estimate do not account for any mineralization outside of the Cactus deposits or the Stockpile. We have historic drilling indicating potentially significant mineralization of the same style and nature as in the Cactus Deposits, only 2 km from a Project with an existing 18 year mine life. Importantly, we see the mineralization improving as we move further north on Parks/Salyer. Exploration success at Parks/Salyer will help us add to the forecast production base at the Cactus Project in the longer term and develop a scalable operation.”
The property is located on contiguous Company-owned land next to the Cactus Project. This provides the Company the opportunity to grow access to further copper resources, resulting in potential increase in mine life at the Cactus Project and leverage off planned Cactus Project infrastructure and equipment.
The current campaign envisages an initial 6-hole exploration program which will follow up on four historic diamond holes drilled at the southern end of the target area, indicating a significant porphyry copper system displaying mineral zonation similar to Cactus with oxide, chalcocite enriched, and primary chalcopyrite-molybdenite mineralization (see FIGURES 1-3). Assuming positive program results, the Company will follow up with an additional 6 holes (3,568 m | 12,000 ft) and expects to further expand the program throughout 2022 dependent upon results from the initial drilling.
The 2022 exploration program for Parks/Salyer aims at declaring maiden NI 43-101 maiden resources for the property by the end of the year 2022 (subject to program success) This will support and expand upon the 18-year, low-cost operation already envisaged at the Cactus Project, providing the company with significant scale of production in the longer term.
The Company now has two drill rigs on site drilling at both the Parks/Salyer and Cactus Projects to support exploration and infill programs, respectively.
Quality Assurance / Quality Control
Drilling completed on the project in 2020 was supervised by on-site ASCU personnel who prepared core samples for assay and implemented a full QA/QC program using blanks, standards and duplicates to monitor analytical accuracy and precision. The samples were sealed on site and shipped to Skyline Laboratories in Tucson AZ for analysis. Skyline’s quality control system complies with global certifications for Quality ISO9001:2008.
Technical aspects of this news release have been reviewed and verified by Allan Schappert – CPG, who is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101– Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.
Source: https://arizonasonoran.com/