Lone Mountain, New Mexico
Shareholders Letter
"Given the grade, estimated tonnage and the leachability at Lone Mountain, our geological team, with 150 years of collective copper expertise, enthusiastically believes that we have a significant leachable copper deposit at the Lone Mountain project."
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Lone Mountain - Overview
The Lone Mountain porphyry copper system is located near Silver City, New Mexico. It is situated in a well-known mining district, seven miles southwest of the Santa Rita-Chino mine and ten miles northeast of the Tyrone mine; both of these mines are large open-pit copper operations owned by Freeport-McMoRan.
Land holdings on the property consist of two New Mexico State mineral leases and 40 unpatented federal mining claims, comprising 619.17 hectares (1,530 acres). Copper One has acquired an undivided 100% interest in the claims and leases.
Lone Mountain - Mineralization
The property covers a large tonnage porphyry copper system with over 23,000 meters of historic drilling in 47 drill holes. It represents a broadly-explored, (drill hole spacing was approximately 250 meters) well-mineralized, porphyry-skarn system with multiple, stacked mineralized targets, and is the company's flagship project and its first target to be tested by drilling.
Two distinct targets are present; a near-surface zone of oxide mineralization which is the focus of Copper One's 2008-2009 drilling program; and deeper, copper-zinc-silver-gold skarn mineralization which can attain high grades over significant widths.
Copper oxide mineralization begins approximately 60 meters below surface and continues to over 250 meters below surface. The lower parts of the oxide zone become chalcocite-dominant. The combined copper oxide and mixed oxide-chalcocite zone grades from 0.2% to 0.37% copper over significant widths as seen in the following cross-section. Historical data shows that the skarn mineralization can attain multiple percent grades of copper and zinc over significant (tens of meters) true widths, and this may also be the focus of a future phase of drilling which will involve the deepening of certain holes targeting the shallower oxide-dominant mineralization.
Lone Mountain - Exploration History
The Lone Mountain copper prospect has been historically drilled by numerous large mining companies as a porphyry copper system, discovering significant zones of copper and zinc at depths beneath an overlying zone of oxide copper. At the time, the copper oxide mineralization was not considered a target since more modern, SX-EW technology had yet to be developed to treat the lower-grade oxide copper mineralization which typically overlies the deeper sulfide copper mineralization.
Assaying of historic drill holes, however, has shown a significant accumulation of oxide copper to exist at shallower depths in the Lone Mountain system. Below are listed selected intersections of copper oxide mineralization from the historic drilling, illustrating the potential of the Lone Mountain oxide deposit.
Click for Historic Oxide Table
The table below lists selected significant drill hole intersections from the deeper sulfide mineralization, where higher grade skarn mineralization is hosted by Upper Paleozoic sediments.
Click for Historic Sulfide Table
Lone Mountain - Current Exploration
A seven-hole reverse circulation drill program was completed in January 2009 which targeted the known near-surface copper oxide zone, which until recently has only been defined by widely spaced (c 250m) drilling.
Drill hole LM-42, intersected 182.9 meters (600 feet) grading 0.205% oxide copper between 61.0 and 243.8 meters (200 and 800 feet), with 15.24 meters (50 feet) grading 0.498% copper and with the last 9.1 meters (30 feet) grading 0.43% copper.
Copper One's geologists believe that an average sample grade of 0.20% oxide copper provides an excellent foundation to continue to develop the Lone Mountain property. The oxide portion of porphyry copper systems in the SW USA has cut-off grades from 0.04% Cu to 0.10% Cu, depending on leach characteristics. The Lone Mountain project has excellent leach characteristics as determined from recently completed bottle roll test work by Mountain States Research and Development.
The completed Phase One drill program provides Copper One with valuable geological information with which to base more detailed drilling in the one mile by one mile mineralized area.
The following table shows the significant intervals of oxide copper mineralization intersected by the latest drill program, and representing only a small part of the overall system:
2010/2011 Definition Drill Plan
Drill out of copper oxide in 2010 / 2011:
- 60 holes planned (12,000 to 25,000 metre program)
- Nominal 75m spacings of drill holes
- Mostly reverse circulation
- 25% core holes to test deeper skarn targets
- Drilling commenced in January 2010
- Complete NI 43-101 resource calculation in 2010, after completion of drilling
Lone Mt Property – Drill Hole Location Map