American Eagle Gold defines porphyry outcrop at Nak Project, British Columbia
American Eagle Gold Corp. [TSXV-AE; OTCQB-AMEGF] made a potentially significant discovery of outcropping copper mineralization at its Nak project in west-central British Columbia. As a follow-up to an induced polarization survey conducted in 2024 that highlighted a new area of interest designated the IP Embayment zone (IPE zone). American Eagle deployed field teams to the IPE zone, where they discovered three widely separated outcrops of copper-bearing porphyry outcrops.
Highlights: Field teams identified a copper-bearing porphyry outcrop in the central part of the IP Embayment zone, a previously undrilled and highly prospective area.
The company has intersected disseminated and vein-hosted chalcopyrite mineralization at depth on the margins of the IP Embayment zone in drill hole NAK24-19.
The IP Embayment zone in the southeastern area of the Nak project will be elevated as a priority target for further exploration and drilling.
Further, American Eagle reports that drill hole NAK24-19, which was drilled to target the western margin of the IP Embayment zone, has encountered chalcopyrite mineralization below 700 metres downhole that is similar to the outcropping mineralization and mineralization encountered in Nak’s North zone and South zone target areas.
These discoveries and the results from drill hole NAK23-09 drilled 300 metres to the northeast of the mineralized outcrop provide compelling reasons to continue exploration and drilling of the IPE zone.
Visual observations of NAK24-18, NAK24-19 and NAK24-20 drill core are consistent with observations from 2023 drill holes and reinforce the notion that the more gold-rich South zone and the more copper-rich North zone are linked. The first three deep holes of the program have now been completed, with all holes exceeding 900 metres in depth. Drilling continues, with one rig testing the undrilled ground between the historical North and South zones and one rig delineating the near-surface gold-rich mineralization in the South zone, while data from the IPE zone are collected and interpreted.
The continuing 2024 drill program, currently planned for 15,000 metres, will aim to link, better define and expand upon the historical North and South zones, which the company showed in its 2022 and 2023 drill programs to extend to considerable depths (close to 950 metres below surface) along a strike length of 750 metres and across a width of 400 metres. Intercepts from 2023 include 900 metres of 0.50 per cent copper equivalent from surface in the North zone and 302 metres of 1.09% copper equivalent within 606 metres of 0.74% copper equivalent starting from 98 metres downhole in the South zone.
The Nak project lies within the Babine copper-gold porphyry district of central British Columbia. It has excellent infrastructure through all-season roads and is close to the towns of Smithers, Houston and Burns Lake, B.C., which lie along a major rail line and Provincial Highway 16.
Historical drilling and geophysical, geological and geochemical work at Nak, which began in the 1960s, tested only to shallow depths. Still, the work revealed a very large near-surface copper-gold system that measures over 1.5 km by 1.5 km. Drilling completed in 2022 and 2023 by American Eagle has returned significant intervals of high-grade copper-gold mineralization that lie beyond the extent of historical drilling, indicating that several zones of near-surface and deeper mineralization, locally with considerably higher grades, exist within the broader Nak property mineralizing system.