New High-Grade Copper-Gold-Silver Discovery Zone Confirmed
BY: MIKE FAGAN
Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU)(OTC: CHKKF) – currently trading below US$0.50 per share – is a Canadian-based mineral exploration firm that’s advancing the high-grade copper-gold-silver Soledad Project in central-Peru.
Mineralization associated with the project is copper-gold-silver bearing breccia pipes, many of which crop out at surface and increase in size with depth.
Chakana has already intersected several breccia pipes in the early drilling — testing 7 of 23 confirmed pipes with more than 90 total targets identified. Below, you can get a feel for the complex mineralization as displayed by drill core from Breccia Pipe #1.
Admittedly, the market has been a tad slow to react to the impressive progress achieved thus far at Soledad. Yet, that may soon be changing as the company just released some of the highest-grade intercepts ever achieved at Soledad.
And so, here is the breaking news: Assays from the first 3 holes at the Paloma West target are in — and they’re impressive to say the least.
Highlights include 22.65 meters of 2.81 g/t gold, 3.80% copper, and 56.2 g/t silver (9.36 g/t gold equivalent) from 48 meters. The other two holes also produced significant mineralization, including 42.65 meters of 1.87 g/t gold, 84.5 g/t silver and 2.15% copper or 6.26 g/t gold equivalent.
Not only are we talking exceptionally high-grades, but, as an added bonus, the mineralization starts very close to surface which should translate to a lower capex number as a mine plan is eventually developed.
Keep in mind also that Paloma West represents a newly discovered mineralized zone that connects to Paloma East, which, in its own right, has produced multiple intercepts of near-surface, high-grade mineralization in the early drill rounds.
Looking ahead, there are additional assays still pending from Paloma West, and the drills have now shifted to what the company believes may be the most prospective area yet — Huancarama.
Our own Gerardo Del Real of Junior Resource Monthly and Junior Resource Trader spoke with Chakana CEO, David Kelley, about the late-breaking results, their significance, and the plan moving forward.
Interview with David Kelley,
CEO of Chakana Copper
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU)(OTC: CHKKF), Mr. David Kelley.
Dave, how are you?
David Kelley: I'm doing great, Gerardo, how are you doing?
GDR: I'm well, and I'm starting to think you may want to change the name from Chakana Copper to "Chakana Copper, Gold, and Silver". If the news this week is any indication, you're off to what I think could be a game-changing discovery at Paloma West.
You just announced a new high grade discovery. The headline number is just fantastic, but there's so much more to it. The headline reads "22.65 meters of 2.81 grams per tonne gold, 3.80% copper, and 56.2 grams per tonne silver”. If you want to convert that to gold equivalent, that would be 9.36 grams per tonne of gold equivalent over 22.65 meters.
And it’s shallow — from 48 meters. I believe that the stock has seen some selling pressure from a short, but that aside, congratulations on the discovery. It's not every day that you can announce results like this. Good work, good work.
DK: Well, thanks, Gerardo. Again, hats off to the Peru team for pulling out this kind of result in a pandemic. I couldn't be more proud of those guys. They seem to do it time and time again, but, I mean, these results are really, really significant, right? These are some of the highest grade results we've ever released on the property. They're of the same kind of grade profile that we've seen at Breccia 1, which has always been our best Breccia pipe in terms of grade.
It's really stunning to see the rocks themselves, if you go look at the core photos in the press release, they're absolutely stunning. All three holes had high grades.
The first three holes in Paloma West come back with super high grades. We're just 150 meters from Paloma East, where we were having hundreds of meters starting at surface with really good grades, 0.8 to 1% copper equivalent type of grades, with some high grade in there too. And we know we can chase that high grade. We absolutely think these two Breccia systems are linked. So it's a very, very significant result for the project.
GDR: Let's go over each hole because I think that's important. Hole 140 was really impressive with 80 meters of 2.27 grams per tonne gold equivalent. And let's break that down a bit. That was 0.39 grams per tonne gold. That was 30.5 grams per tonne silver. And that was 0.97% copper. All starting from just 21 meters below surface.
Can you speak to the zonation of the precious metals versus the copper, and the shallow nature of the mineralization?
DK: Well, what's really exciting about this is we're seeing really, really high copper right below surface, right? And, it says 21 meters, but that's because this is a step out hole. So we're stepping away from the Breccia pipe and drilling back across it. And so the mineralization actually starts at surface, and we know the copper gets oxidized in the top 30 meters or so and it gets leached out, so we're left with copper or gold and silver. But yeah, I mean, to have such high grade essentially right at surface is even more encouraging, especially when you consider the long runs of mineralization starting at surface at Paloma East. So it's very significant.
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GDR: I noticed in Hole 141 you had 42.65 meters, and the gold, silver and copper grades increased, right? Now, all of a sudden, gold came in at 1.87 grams per tonne gold, silver at 84.5 grams per tonne silver, and copper at 2.15% copper. That's extremely high grade. Copper equivalent 4.09%, gold equivalent 6.26 grams per tonne, again, over 42.65 meters, right?
DK: Yeah, exactly. And that hole was the westernmost hole. So again, you were talking about zoning, that's showing us that the Western side of the Breccia is even higher grade than the first hole, which went through the middle of it. And it's kind of a reflection of this theme we've been on for a long time, which is that the margins of the Breccia pipe can be the richest. And that hole demonstrates it perfectly.
That 42 meters you mentioned with 6.2 gram gold equivalent, has two margin zones, right? Because we started outside the pipe, we hit the Breccia, there's a margin zone right there, we go through the middle of the Breccia, we go through the other side of the Breccia, and there's another margin zone there. So the two margin zones of that hole: the first margin zone was five meters of 8.72 grams per tonne gold equivalent, and then 22 meters on the backside with 9.36 grams per tonne gold equivalent. So the margin grades are there in this pipe. It's a great feature to have because it really increases the grade profile of the Breccia pipe, and we're just getting started.
GDR: And then Hole 142, again long with some mineralization, right? 67.3 meters of 0.79 grams per tonne gold, 41.6 grams per tonne silver, and 0.66% copper, or 2.34 grams per tonne gold equivalent. I know you have assays pending from Paloma West. I also know you're excited to drill Huancarama, which many people believe is the most prospective target. And again, for perspective, for that to be the most prospective target, given the nature of these numbers, this is going to be tough to beat, Dave.
DK: Well, it is, and you never know what's going to happen in exploration, right? When we drill, we do everything we can to increase our confidence and prioritize our targets and stuff. But you never know what's going to happen. I mean, just look at Paloma East and Paloma West. Paloma East, the surface expression was small, 25 meter diameter, very strong gold right at surface, very consistent, multi-gram gold, right at surface on that outcrop. Whereas Paloma West was much lower grade, in part because the Breccia wasn't all that well exposed at surface, there was a lot of altered wall rock around it, slightly bigger footprint, so if I had made a prediction, at that point, I would have said, well, Paloma East is probably going to be a narrow hydrate pipe, and Paloma West is going to be a bigger, low grade pipe, and it was the exact opposite, right?
So, we take what we get. But both have far exceeded our expectations. We're very excited. We have started drilling on Huancarama. The drill rig is moved over there, and I think we're on our fourth hole right now, and it's a big area. So, it's going to take a lot of scout drilling. Paloma East and West were much better defined targets because it was just two Breccia outcrops to focus on — although we found a lot more Breccia at depth once we started drilling. Whereas at Huancarama, we have multiple Breccias exposed at surface over a broad area. So, we're going to be scout drilling there for a while. Super exciting to be there, finally. And I can't wait to share those results with your readers.
GDR: I'm looking forward to it. Do you want to set the table on a timeline for those results, Dave? I hate to put you on the spot.
DK: I really don't... I mean, we will consistently have more results on Paloma West. And obviously we need to work through those first, and get our understanding of what's happening with Paloma. We're still logging drill core and that type of thing. The turnaround has been good with the lab. They've done a great job for us. The one thing that does slow down the labs is when you have high grade results like this, they have to basically re-assay everything twice with different methods. So, if your copper content is over 1%, they go to a copper assay method. If your gold is over 10 grams, they go to gravimetric. If your silver is over 200 grams, they go to a high-grade assay method for silver. So, we saw in this first release that we're talking about today, a lot of the samples had to be re-assayed because of the high-grade nature. And that slows it down, but that's a great problem to have.
GDR: A wise man once called it, "champagne problems", Dave.
DK: Yeah, absolutely.
GDR: Dave, thank you so much. Congrats again, looking forward to the next set of results and keep it up, keep it up. Good work.
DK: Absolutely. Thank you, Gerardo. Appreciate it.
Yours In Profits,
Mike Fagan
Editor, Resource Stock Digest
Mike Fagan has mining in his blood. As a teenager he staked countless gold and silver properties in Nevada alongside his dad, Brian Fagan, who created the Prospect Generator model that’s still widely used today in the resource space. One of those staking projects was put into production by a major Canadian mining company — a truly rare and profitable experience. That background uniquely qualifies him as a mining stock speculator. One of the most well-known names in the business, Mike is now putting that experience to use for the benefit of Resource Stock Digest and Hard Asset Digest readers.
Chakana Copper (TSX-V: PERU)(OTC: CHKKF) – currently trading below US$0.50 per share – is a Canadian-based mineral exploration firm that’s advancing the high-grade copper-gold-silver Soledad Project in central-Peru.
