Mining News: Northern Neighbors: Kaizen extends Coppermine strike to 50 miles

Kaizen Discovery Inc. Oct. 19 reported that reconnaissance drilling has significantly expanded the area of sediment-hosted copper-silver mineralization at its Coppermine project in Nunavut. The majority of a nine-hole drill program completed this year targeted sediment-hosted, stratiform copper-silver mineralization at the base of the Neoproterozoic Rae Group. Previous work by Cominco in the early 1990s and Teshierpi Mines in the late 1960s intersected stratiform copper mineralization in a series of shallow holes drilled over a strike distance of about 40 kilometers (25 miles) in the eastern part of the project area. Kaizen drilled seven holes through the base of the Rae Group, over a strike of roughly 40 kilometers (25 miles) westward from the historical drilling, and totaling 1,949 meters. Copper mineralization was intersected in all seven holes. The final and furthest west hole, CP15-DD009, returned 29 meters grading 0.57 percent copper from a depth of 197 meters, including a one-meter interval grading 3.04 percent copper. Hole DD008, drilled about 10 kilometers (six miles) east of DD009, intersected anomalous zinc mineralization grading 0.18 percent over 3.11 meters, stratigraphically above a moderately mineralized copper zone, 0.26 percent copper over 5.06 meters. Kaizen’s 2015 drilling has doubled the confirmed strike length of mineralized basal Rae Group strata to 80 kilometers (50 miles), and the system remains open along strike. Kaizen has increased its land-holding over the Coppermine area by staking an additional 185 square kilometers (71 square miles) in the western part of the area, covering a gap between its two main blocks. The Coppermine project covers roughly 3,500 square kilometers (1,350 square miles) prospective for sediment-hosted copper, and high-grade volcanic-hosted copper-silver.

- Shane Lasley