A short, 6-hole drill program by Hudson Bay Exploration & Development on the Lottie Lake sulphide prospect in central British Columbia has failed to find the source of high-grade copper boulders uncovered in past trenches.
The 709-metre campaign was the culmination of a 5-month-long field season in which HudBay conducted property-wide geochemical sampling and geophysics. The latter phase entailed flying over a third of the property with HudBay’s proprietary Spectrum airborne (fixed-wing) electromagnetic (EM) system.
HudBay, an affiliate of
Grid lines totalling 81 km were cut over nine targets selected from new and past geochemical and geophysical anomalies. Ground EM surveys further defined the targets.
The primary target was a 900-metre-long, open-ended ground EM anomaly southeast of an area where high-grade copper boulders had been discovered.
In 1998, a single, well-mineralized boulder was found during prospecting on the Lottie claims. The boulder assayed 24% copper. Eureka dug a series of test pits in 1999 and uncovered numerous boulders that assayed 10-22% copper.
Based on the angularity, frequency and distribution of the heavily mineralized boulders, Eureka believed the source was not far away. The Lottie claims are underlain by the Antler assemblage of intermediate-to-basic volcanic rocks.
HudBay tested the Lottie EM anomaly with four holes, which intersected volcanic rocks intercalated with chert and graphitic siltstone. No sulphides were encountered, and the company concluded that the graphitic units caused the EM anomaly.
The other two holes were drilled in the northern portion of the property; both were hampered by an extensive glacial till and colluvium cover. One of these holes tested a Spectrum anomaly but failed to reach bedrock and was terminated at 35.1 metres. The other hole tested an older (1998) anomaly and intersected a mixed succession of volcanic rocks and graphitic sediments under 50 metres of overburden.
HudBay believes that both EM anomalies were caused by conductive overburden.
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