Aston Bay Holdings has initiated at $C4 million field program at the Storm copper project on Somerset Island, Nunavut, Canada, where BHP Billiton can earn a 75% interest in the project by spending a minimum of C$40 million on qualifying exploration expenditures over a period of up to nine years. Aston Bay is currently the operator at the project and has no required exploration expenses for the first four years of the option agreement. BHP Billiton has the right to assume operatorship of the project at any time.
Work planned for the current field season includes approximately 2,000 m of drilling; relogging of existing drill core; surface mapping and regional soil sampling over a 105-km strike length to develop new targets for future seasons; and prospecting to investigate promising contacts and structures.
The Storm project is located approximately 20 km from tidewater. The primary economic interest centers on four zones of significant copper mineralization, with several target zones remaining to be drill tested.
Stratabound copper mineralization is hosted in dolomitic sediments of the Allen Bay formation. Copper oxide mineralization is present at surface in the form of malachite, azurite and chalcocite. Malachite and azurite, along with primary hypogene chalcocite copper mineralization and the presence of bornite and chalcopyrite, have been identified to at least 100 m of depth.
Historic drilling at the Storm project has produced core-length intercepts of 110 m from surface grading 2.45% copper, 56 m from 12.2 m depth grading 3.07% copper, and 49 m from surface grading 1.79% copper. (astonbayholdings.com)
