MINING IN CANADA — Eastfield, Ascot prepare to follow up BC discovery

Eastfield Resources (ETF-V) and partner Ascot Resources (AOT-V) believe an early-stage, grassroots copper-molybdenum discovery in the Babine Lake area of central British Columbia could have the makings of a large porphyry system.

Ascot can earn a 50% interest in the Fort property from Eastfield by spending $1.5 million in exploration over five years, paying a total of $705,000 and issuing 200,000 shares. An upcoming joint-venture exploration program will involve geological mapping, geochemical sampling and induced polarization (IP) geophysical surveying. The program, budgeted at $200,000 to $300,000, is set to begin as soon as spring conditions allow.

Eastfield optioned a 100% interest in the new mineral discovery from a local prospector in December. Elden Nyberg, a bulldozer operator, is credited with making the initial discovery. During the construction of a new logging road, Nyberg noticed base metal mineralization in freshly exposed outcrop east of Babine Lake and 55 km southeast of the past-producing Granisle copper-gold mine.

Nyberg brought the showing to the attention of local prospector Richard Haslinger, who staked a 40-claim package around what is now called the Specularite Lake showing. Haslinger is noted for originally staking claims that cover part of the Mt. Milligan Main and Southern Star deposits, 95 km east-northeast of the Fort property. Those deposits contain a combined measured and indicated resource of 299 million tonnes grading 0.22% copper and 0.45 gram gold per tonne.

Ascot and Eastfield have since staked an additional 452 claims, using government airborne magnetic data and the location of known mineral occurrences in the region, to hold a total land package of 120 sq. km.

“When the prospector first brought it to us, it was a bit questionable,” explains Eastfield Vice-President Glen Garratt. “Then we paid for the analysis of a whole bunch more samples he had been working on; suddenly you could see that he had uncovered mineralization over a very big area. In the second batch [of samples], we started to see the moly numbers coming in, and that gave us a more definitive sense of a porphyry, even though we weren’t initially seeing intrusions.”

The early sampling, while limited to 27 soil and 18 rock samples, indicates that copper-molybdenum-silver mineralization extends over a 700-by-400-metre area, remaining open in all directions.

The area is characterized by subdued topography and extensive, but locally thin, overburden.

The new road exposed three large outcrops over a distance of 700 metres, with the longest exposure being over 400 metres in length. Eight grab samples collected at various locations along the new road cuts averaged 0.34% copper, 0.017% moly and 72.3 grams silver. A ninth grab sample ran 1.51% copper, 0.181% moly and 270 grams silver.

Three of the samples were assayed for zinc and lead, returning values ranging from 0.36% to 1.01% zinc and 0.33% to 0.48% lead. Gold values are generally low, with the highest value being 98 parts per million (ppm).

Approximately 50 metres of outcrop is exposed in what has been labelled Road Cut No. 1. Four soil samples taken along the road returned values ranging from 80 to 2,669 ppm copper, 2 to 12 ppm moly and 0.7 to 8.5 ppm silver. A pit-sampling grid was established above the road cut and nine samples, collected from near-surface bedrock over an area of 200 by 400 metres, ranged from 113 to 5,589 ppm copper, 2 to 12 ppm molybdenum and 0.9 to 12.2 ppm silver.

Road Cut No. 2 represents approximately 400 metres of outcropping bedrock.

Of the 18 soil samples taken to test the up-slope extension of the road-cut mineralization, 15 were anomalous, returning 118 to 2,350 ppm copper, 1 to 227 ppm moly and 0.3 to 1.4 ppm silver, from an area measuring 200 by 500 metres.

Two soil samples in the area of Road Cut No. 3 yielded 568 and 1,193 ppm copper, 101 and 325 ppm moly, plus 0.9 and 1.8 ppm silver.

Thin-section work was completed by Vancouver Petrographics on six rock samples: three from the immediate area of the Specularite showing, and three from other exposures encountered during staking.

Two of the three samples from the Specularite Lake showing are classified as strongly altered monzonite. The alteration is an intense form of potassium alteration that includes abundant secondary potassium feldspar, green biotite and secondary hydrothermal silica. The alteration is characteristic of the core zone of a hydrothermal system surrounding a porphyry intrusion.

A third sample, collected from an exposure 3 km northwest of the Specularite Lake showing, was also classified as an altered and brecciated monzonite.

While much of the Fort property has not been explored, several mineral occurrences had been discovered within the claim block in the past. Trenches west of Cunningham Lake on the central-western claim boundary revealed shattered and silicified andesites and rhyolites hosting disseminated pyrite, chalcopyrite and epithermal vein mineralization. Trench samples returned 0.46% to 1% copper, 14.8 to 416.9 grams silver and 0.3 to 2.16 grams gold.

In addition, five massive sulphide boulders found in the area assayed up to 1.28% copper, 5.82 grams silver and 0.24 gram gold.

At the southern end of the property, soil geochemistry surveys defined a discontinuous 1,400-metre-long copper anomaly greater than 190 ppm, east of Butterfield Lake, and a 700-metre-long coincident copper-silver-zinc anomaly west of Butterfield Lake.

Ascot reports that the bedrock exposures consist of volcanics, intrusives and a well-developed breccia unit containing mineralized quartz diorite fragments. Chalcopyrite, molybdenite and pyrite mineralization occurs in a variety of lithologies.

There is no detailed government mapping of the geology in the property area because of the extensive overburden and the previous lack of access.

Regional-scale mapping indicates the property is predominantly underlain by Permian-age felsic to mafic volcanics and sediments of the Cache Creek Group, intruded by ultramafics, Lower Jurassic-age foliated quartz diorite and Upper Jurassic diorite. Near the southwestern limits of the property, these rocks are overlain by younger Eocene volcanics of the Endako Group.

A number of copper porphyry deposits, including the past-producing Bell Copper and Granisle mines, occur at the northern end of Babine Lake, 55 km northwest of the Fort property. These deposits are associated with Babine Suite plutons hosted in Jurassic Hazelton Group volcanics and sediments overlying the Cache Creek Group sequence.

At the Granisle mine, 52.7 million tonnes of ore with an average head grade of 0.47% copper, 0.2 gram gold and 2.01 grams silver were milled during the mine’s life, from 1966 to 1982. The stripping ratio averaged 1.37 to 1.

Production from the Bell Copper mine during its operating life from 1972 to 1992 totalled 77.2 million tonnes at an average head grade of 0.47% copper, 0.26 gram gold and 1 gram silver. The stripping ratio was 0.98 to 1.

Remaining resources are estimated to be 119 million tonnes grading 0.41% copper and 0.15 gram gold at Granisle and 296 million tonnes grading 0.46% copper and 0.2 gram gold at Bell.

Eastfield currently has in the order of $350,000 in working capital. In early February, the company announced it had arranged a brokered assisted financing of up to 2.5 million special warrants at a price of 30cents each.

Each special warrant will be exchangeable for one unit consisting of one common share and one non-transferable warrant entitling the purchase of an additional share at 30cents for the first year and 35cents for the second year.

Ascot had a working capital of about $250,000 at year-end. The company announced in late January it had arranged a private placement of 3.45 million units at 15cents each. Each unit will consist of one share and one non-transferable warrant entitling the purchase of an additional share at 30cents in the first year, or 35cents if exercised in the second year.

Ascot currently has 17.8 million shares outstanding, or 22.7 million on a fully dilute
d basis. Eastfield has approximately 11 million shares outstanding.