Canadian copper explorer Wedgemount Resources (CSE:WDGY) has just updated its investors on recent progress at its Cookie property in British Columbia. Regular readers of The Armchair Trader will know that Wedgemount is a recently list copper explorer which has identified three potential copper producing packages in the province.
The focus of the 2021 Phase 1 exploration program at Cookie is to confirm the grade and style of copper and gold mineralization documented in historic assessment reports as well as to evaluate new areas considered prospective for porphyry-related mineralization.
Priority targets such as the five kilometer long, Red to Amber corridor on the eastern side of the property as well as the over six kilometer east-west trend of seven under-explored copper occurrences (e.g., ARD, Kim, Overstall, Verna) on the western side of the property have so far been investigated.
Under-explored claims with interesting historic data
Wedgemount has emphasised relatively under-explored claims which still hold out sufficient historical data to make them worth a second – or third – look using more advanced technology.
Work at the Cookie claim included 650 soils samples that were collected along regional ridge-top transects and also on tightly spaced sample grids. Rock-chip samples totaling 118 have been collected for alteration mineralogy characterisation and over 80 rock samples have been collected for full geochemical analyses.
Based on the identification of numerous zones of porphyry-related potassic, propylitic and phyllic alteration with associated copper-bearing sulfides, additional mapping and sampling is planned.
Contingent on results from these geochemical surveys, an induced polarization (IP) geophysical survey will be completed over priority areas. Assay results will be released once all data has been returned from the lab.
“Our technical team has done an outstanding job finding previously un-sampled zones of porphyry-related mineralization outcropping in multiple areas of the project,” Mark Vanry, President and CEO of Wedgemount explained. “In particular, it’s extremely satisfying to discover multiple new mineralized zones on tenures which Wedgemount staked for minimal cost surrounding our historically explored “Red Claims” during 2021.”
Vanry said he continued to be very positive on the potential for the area of historic Red drilling where the alteration envelope is significantly larger than the area of historic work during the 1960’s and early 2000’s.
Focus is on the Cookie property
The center of the 29,000 hectare Cookie property is approximately 40 kilometers south of Centerra Gold’s past producing Kemess copper-gold mine and approximately 200 kilometers north of Smithers B.C.
Historical work from the late-1960s to the early 2000’s, including geological mapping, geophysical and geochemical surveys and limited drilling have outlined numerous porphyry-related copper-gold targets defined by widespread hydrothermal alteration zones, copper and gold mineralization and strong, yet un-drill-tested copper-in-soil geochemical anomalies.
The property straddles a terrane boundary (e.g., Ingenika Fault) between the Quesnel and Stikine terranes where Triassic to Jurassic sequences of volcaniclastic and sedimentary rocks are intruded by Early Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous plutons and stocks.
Most of the historical work on the Cookie property has been confined to large gossans on the east side that represent more altered and porphyritic varieties of the intrusive units. Here, Cu-Au±Mo mineralisation observed in historic drill core and outcrop is associated with porphyry-related hydrothermal alteration (e.g., Red-Amber corridor).
Similarly on the west side of the property, widespread alteration, and local copper-bearing mineralisation (e.g., ARD, Kim, Overstall, Verna) is located within rocks that host intrusions associated with the regionally prospective Black Lake intrusive suite.
