ArizonaHere is a different take on the Arizona properties from L. Roulston's Resource Opportunities newsletter. You may agree or disagree with Roulston's take on CUU, but at least Roulston bases his analysis on some hard facts whereas Brundall is just BSing as usual.
"Copper Fox is also on the hunt for addi-tional acquisitions. The management and technical team did an admirable job of advancing Schaft Creek through a feasibil-ity study. They are intent on repeating that success with another big North American copper project.
The work in Arizona is being conducted through a subsidiary company – Desert Fox. The wholly-owned Van Dyke copper project, located in the Globe-Miami min-ing district of Arizona, is reported to have produced 11.8 million pounds of copper between 1929 and 1945 from a shaft sunk on the property. Production was from cop-per oxide mineralization at a reported grade of 5% copper.
A major oil company, Occidental, and a number of other companies, drilled the project between 1968 and 1973. Of the 70 exploration holes, 62 encountered measur-able copper mineralization. A historical estimate, based on 46 of those holes, out-lined 112 million tonnes at a grade of 0.52% copper (estimated to contain 1.2 billion pounds of copper). (Note: Those figures are a historical estimate and not a compliant resource.)
Occidental also carried out preliminary metallurgical testwork to determine if the copper mineralization in the Van Dyke deposit was amendable to in situ leaching. The pilot program included two 1,000-foot-deep holes, 75 feet apart. Dilute acid was
injected into one hole and allowed to per-colate through the copper-bearing horizon. The solution was pumped up the other hole, and the copper precipitated from solution. Hydro-fracturing was used to improve fluid circulation between the holes. The reports on the pilot program indicated copper recoveries up to 80%.
In situ recovery of copper and other miner-als has been used successfully in Arizona and other places for decades. The ISR ap-proach generally involves lower capital and operating costs than conventional min-ing. However, it is only applicable when the metal is in a soluble form and when the metal bearing horizon is permeable and contained within impermeable layers. Those situations apply to the Van Dyke deposit. The second Arizona copper project, Som-brero Butte, is located in the Bunker Hill mining district, nine miles east of the San Manuel mine (14 billion pounds Cu) and two miles south of Redhawk Resources' Copper Creek project (7.75 billion pounds Cu).
Previous exploration at Sombrero Butte identified 25 breccia pipes, which else-where in the district overlie associated porphyry copper systems. Drilling be-tween 2006 and 2008 tested eight of the breccia pipes, with 29 of 34 holes inter-secting significant copper mineralization. Core intervals ranged from two meters to 72 meters, with average copper grades ranging from 0.37% to 5.85% for those intervals. The mineralization in the breccia pipes remains open at depth.
Desert Fox is seeking the source of the copper in the breccia pipes, which the geo-logical team has interpreted to be a por-phyry system. The first step will be surface mapping and sampling. Based on the ini-tial results, they plan a deep-penetrating geophysical survey (induced polarization) to identify chargeability/resistivity anoma-lies indicative of porphyry copper systems.
The Desert Fox geological team has con-siderable experience with regard to Arizona geology. They plan a re-interpretation of the historic results in the context of the modern understanding of porphyry systems and the special features applicable to Arizona geology. With the starting point of an extensive data base, Desert Fox should be able to add value quickly to the Arizona assets."