universal copper defines high priority exploration targets at poplar
Vancouver, British Columbia, April 27, 2021 - Universal Copper Ltd. ("Universal Copper" or the "Company") (TSX Venture: UNV) (Frankfurt: 3TA2) is pleased to announce the Company 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, B.C. 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.
Following up on the April 21, 2021 news release on the northern priority targets in the north, the Company is introducing four priority target areas in the southwestern property area: Copper Pond, Lily, Spruce and Birch.
Figure 1. South Western Property Area Targets
These western exploration targets appear to share the same similar characteristics as the northern targets:
- significant fault structures.
- prominent alteration halos.
- geophysical signatures indicative of intrusives that commonly host porphyry mineralization.
- the little historical geochemistry completed has returned anomalous copper and molybdenum results, with the exception of Copper Pond, which had seen significant historic exploration.
Universal Copper CEO, Clive Massey commented, “This is a very exciting time for our Company with copper prices over four dollars per pound, the exploration season drawing nearer and the opportunity to drill test the newly identified additional targets on the Poplar claim block. We look forward to executing a successful exploration program and potentially expanding the resources at Poplar. With the adoption rates of Electric Vehicles and related technologies continuing to increase, not to mention the electrification of emerging economies worldwide, management sees this as an ideal time for one to leverage investments in the Copper sector”.
Following is a detailed description of each of the targets:
Copper Pond
The Copper Pond target lies at the junction of an interpreted northwest and northeast trending fault. Arcuate magnetic and EM trends interpreted buried intrusions appear to parallel the faults. Copper Pond has been the site of significant historic exploration, including rock and soil geochemistry, with the junction area showing anomalous copper-in-soil, along with coincidental gold, and lesser silver, molybdenum, lead and zinc over a 1.5 by 2-kilometre area. Dome Exploration (Canada) Ltd. completed a 14-hole diamond drilling program in the 1970 to 1973 period outlining an area 120 by 275 metres averaging 0.16% copper, which does not appear to have been followed up with further drilling. A Long Wave InfraRed (LWIR) pyrite anomaly lies immediately north of the drilled area. (Drill Data Source: British Columbia Ministry of Energy and Mines MINFILE Summary 093E071).
Lily
The Lily target lies along an interpreted north-northwest to west trending fault between two interpreted northwest trending faults (Riedel shear?) with a buried intrusive interpreted from the arcuate magnetic and EM trends. There are anomalous copper gold values from very limited geochemical sampling over the target area, and also anomalous molybdenum and gold values to the west and zinc values to the south of the target area, again from very limited sampling. The stream sediment and lake sediment sampling shows moderate to anomalous copper to the west and also within a lake over the target area.
Birch
The Birch target lies between two interpreted north-northwest trending faults around a central, northeast trending buried intrusive unit defined by arcuate magnetics and EM trends. Long Wave InfraRed (LWIR) has defined pyrite and sericite anomalies proximal to the edge of the interpreted intrusive. The soil geochemistry highlighted copper south of the target area and, zinc and lead northeast of the target area and gold within the target area. There are also elevated stream sediment values to the north of the interpreted intrusive.
Spruce
The Spruce target lies at the southern end of a large, north trending buried intrusive defined by arcuate magnetics and EM trends, at the intersection of interpreted northeast and northwest trending faults. LWIR quartz and pyrite anomalies lie along the western margin of this interpreted data at the northern end of the target area. There is no historic geochemistry for this target. One moderately anomalous copper value was recorded from a lake sediment sample over the target area.
Figure 2. Western Property Area Targets
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.
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 km’s from a major access road.
- Affordable grid power is available within 4 km’s 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.
For additional information, please visit the Company's website at www.universalcopper.com
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
“Clive Massey”
Clive H. Massey
President & CEO
For further information, please contact:
Investor Relations
Phone: (604) 341-6870
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Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking" statements. Forward looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Universal Copper Ltd. believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of Universal Copper Ltd. management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Universal Copper Ltd. undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.