Universal Copper Ltd. announced that it has completed a comprehensive study of the historical exploration data at its district-sized 39,000 hectare flagship Poplar Copper Project (the “Poplar”), located southwest of Houston, British Columbia. The Company believes the historic resource at Poplar can be significantly increased by both expansion of mineralization to the west and at depth and by defining new resources at a number of outlying exploration targets.
As an introduction to several of the Company’s highest priorities, three targets in the northern area of the property are highlighted:
All three northern exploration targets appear to share similar characteristics:
- significant fault structures;
- prominent alteration halos;
- geophysical signatures indicative of intrusive that commonly host porphyry mineralization;
- the little historical geochemistry completed has returned anomalous copper and molybdenum results.
A detailed description of each of the targets are as follows:
Pimpernel
The Pimpernel target lies at the junction of large-scale NW and NE trending faults, where two buried intrusions are interpreted from the geophysical data. Long Wave InfraRed (“LWIR”) has recorded elevated levels of sericite, pyrite, magnetite, and quartz. Historic sampling consists of one till sample with elevated copper, silver and molybdenum values and a few B-horizon soil samples with low values. This is a high priority target.
Hemlock
The Hemlock target is cut by an interpreted large scale NW fault, lying to the east of a northwest-trending intrusive interpreted from the geophysical data. LWIR has recorded elevated levels of sericite and pyrite at the intersection of the fault and the intrusive. Historic till sampling has recorded elevated copper, silver and molybdenum values at the northern rim of the intrusive and a rock sample with elevated copper was recorded at the southern boundary of the intrusive.
Aspen
The Aspen target is cut by a large NW trending faults, where three small buried intrusions are interpreted from the geophysical data. LWIR has recorded elevated levels of sericite, pyrite, magnetite, and quartz. Historic sampling consists of one till sample with elevated copper, silver and molybdenum values.
Methodology
LWIR analysis, through proprietary processing of ASTER satellite data, has the ability to map or identify, through reflectance spectroscopy against a set of known standards, mineral distribution over extremely large areas covered by vegetation and shallow cover. The ground-penetrating nature of infrared radiation in the longwave bands allows viewing of mineral spectra in the first 30 to 60 cm of the earth’s surface through dense vegetation.
The geophysical data relied upon was the 2009 airborne magnetic and Electro Magnetic (EM) survey. The buried intrusives appear to exhibit a conductive rim with a more resistant core in EM response, and a magnetic high core with a low magnetic rim in the magnetic response. The interpreted intrusive trend was checked for conformity with the interpreted faults and then alteration responses either directly over or at the edge of the intrusives from the LWIR data, and finally, the bedrock geology.
Universal Copper CEO, Clive Massey commented, “We are extremely pleased the comprehensive compilation supports our belief in the exploration potential at the additional targets. The Company will initiate the exploration recommendations on higher priority Pimpernel target as soon as the snow clears to define drill targets for late H2 Phase II drilling.”
“Management continues to see Poplar as a significantly undervalued asset and believes this is an ideal time to leverage the Company’s value with the Poplar asset as we are in a strengthening copper bull market brought on by the continually increasing adoption rates of Electric Vehicles, electrification and emerging economies worldwide,” he continued.
“The Company continues moving toward the initiation of the 6000 metre H2 Phase I diamond drilling program,” he concluded.
About Poplar
The 39,280-hectare Poplar Project is road accessible, traversed by a 138-Kva power line, accessible via rail and only 88kms to Houston, B.C. or 400kms to the port at Prince Rupert B.C. The property is located in a historic mining area, only 35kms from the Huckleberry Mine and 42kms from Equity Silver. Historic diamond drilling on Poplar consisted of 39,648 meters in 147 holes and resulted in an estimated historic resource. An additional 135 diamond or percussion holes totaling 6,817 meters have been drilled over the remaining property.
The Poplar Deposit has several positive attributes as follows:
- Access is by logging roads 8 kms from a major access road.
- Affordable grid power is available within 4 kms of the deposit.
- Established mining district, with past and present producers located nearby, including Huckleberry (Imperial), Bell Copper (Glencore) and other exploration/development properties nearby Berg (Surge Copper)
- Exploration can be conducted year-round.
Qualified Person
The technical content of this New Release has been reviewed and approved by R. Tim Henneberry, P.Geo (BC) a member of the Company’s Advisory Board and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101.
About Universal Copper
Universal Copper Ltd. is a Canadian-based copper exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of copper properties. The Company’s management team has many years of experience in exploration, finance and efficient public company management. Universal’s current focus is on advancing the Poplar Copper Project, one of the most advanced pre-production copper projects in British Columbia with a historic 43-101 resource of Indicated Mineral Resource of 131 million tonnes at 0.31% Cu, 0.009 % Mo, 0.09g/t Au and 2.39 g/t Ag and Inferred Mineral Resource of 132 million tonnes at 0.27 % Cu, 0.005 % Mo, 0.07 g/t Au and 3.75 g/t Ag.
