Bell Copper's Big Sandy Copper Porphyry Discovery
/
9 September 2022 /
0 Comments
Submitted byfmconway
on9 September 2022
Newly released, "Bell Copper's Big Sandy Copper Porphyry Discovery", a 53-minute-long video describing Arizona's newest copper ore discovery. Dr. Tim Marsh, CEO/President of Bell Copper Corp., presented this talk on 6 Sept. 2022 to ~75 members of the Arizona Geological Society. The video is now accessible at the Arizona Geological Survey’s Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doEOcnWh-C4 .
Abstract
Exploration for the faulted, down-dropped top of the Laramide Diamond Joe porphyry stock northwest of Wikieup, Arizona, has led to the discovery of porphyry-style Cu-Mo-Re-Ag mineralization beneath 600 to nearly 1200 meters of post-faulting, valley-filling gravel cover. Three diamond drillholes separated by 1.2 to 1.8 kilometers have each cut rocks subjected to copper mineralization and related alteration typical of porphyry copper systems. The continuous 820 meters of pervasively sericitized and veined quartz monzonite porphyry in drillhole BS-3, the latest hole completed on the project, compare well with the multi-kilometer dimensions of the porphyry system preserved in the inferred footwall of the system at Diamond Joe. Horizontal offset between the Big Sandy drill intersection and the center of the Diamond Joe system is on the order of 13 kilometers. Dips of the overlying gravel beds fan westward from about 15 degrees at surface to over 40 degrees near the Laramide basement. The horizontal offset is attributed to a small number of buried, east-facing Basin and Range normal faults. Future drilling targets a chalcocite enrichment blanket overlying the inferred copper shell internal to the sericitic/pyritic zone that was cut in BS-3.
This presentation was part of the Arizona Geological Society's 2022 Presentation Series.
