CEO Summary: XRF Geochem Analysis for Battery Metals at Hay Mountain

For clarity: Hay Mountain (Cochise County, Arizona) is in fact a typical Paleozoic limestone hosted porphyry copper emanating from a quartz monzonitic stock indicated by our detailed geophysics. In laymen’s terms; a body of solidified granite at depth. Its characteristics are known from both the Lowell – Guilbert Porphyry Copper Model and from all similar porphyry copper deposits in southeast Arizona and northern Mexico. Before his recent death, John Guilbert and I collaborated on geochemistry, geophysics, geologic and alteration characteristics and reached the preceding conclusion. The best high-grade ore mineralization is in the lower layers of the limestones particularly exemplified by the nearby Bisbee deposit only 15 miles to the south of the Hay Mountain Project, and by the alteration zone around the Sunnyside porphyry and its lead, silver, zinc, manganese peripheral Taylor deposit under development by Arizona Mining [TSE: AZ]. Hay Mountain is in the marble front (see Sunnyside diagram below, by geologist Dr. Peter Megaw). Other porphyry copper characteristics of Hay Mountain include pervasive metal zoning out from the porphyry center, prolific breccia pipes, and prolific quartz veins, some up to 10 or more feet wide. Work conducted at Silverbell, Arizona in the 1990’s with Dr. John Guilbert and geochemist Shea Clark Smith documented the numerous types of zoned metals, which we see at Hay Mountain. 

We knew that we had all the newly defined “Battery Metals” before the term was coined, but their value has gone up drastically and probably will remain at a high level for the foreseeable future. That is why we had the ability to note that “we had” them as they were defined. They will without a doubt be co-product or by- product metals in addition to copper at Hay Mountain.

Battery Metals at Hay Mountain

A transportation and energy paradigm shift to all electric vehicles of all types has emerged bringing the world a new suite of Battery Metals. These battery metals include several that have strongly positive anomalies at Hay Mountain: copper, cobalt, nickel, manganese, zinc, lead, and several of the rare earth elements, including scandium. Scandium when alloyed with aluminum, another metal key to electric vehicles, makes aluminum harder and less flexible, and thus usable in aircraft and EV body frames substituting for steel and reducing weight significantly. We don’t have aluminum and we don’t have lithium. The list is rounded out by carbon, although not a metal. Other elements may emerge, but this seems to be the list for now.

We have been aware of the minerals that are part of the battery metals list in our Hay Mountain target areas since completing the vegetation geochemical survey early in the program. Back then we were interested in copper, gold and moly. With the transportation – energy paradigm shift to electric vehicles we are widening our focus.

All these metal elements in a porphyry system seems unusual to many geologists. It is not! When we explored for porphyry copper deposits at West and East Silverbell using the same geochemical approach, we found the same metal assemblage in those anomalies and for control purposes took the same type of samples over the drilled-out but at that time unmined and still virgin North Silverbell orebody. The samples showed the same zoning patterns as are now revealed at Hay Mountain. We may be the only porphyry copper team knowledgeable about the use of vegetation geochemistry for porphyry copper systems, and looking at these ancillary metals for over 30 years.

Sample Collection Geochemistry

This August I told shareholders about the x-ray fluorescence (XRF) assessment work we commenced over the main anomaly (about 3 square miles) at Hay Mountain. While the main anomaly is dominated by anomalies for gold, copper, moly, and lead, the presence of the battery metals was also indicated. We need to understand the presence of these battery metals in a more detailed way.

Our initial geochem work in 2011 employed a program of sample collection for soil, vegetation, and rock chips. We have used this method for over 30 years according to a process we developed with experienced geochemist Shea Clark Smith. The sample collection process is widely recognized in the hard-rock mining industry and is used by companies large and small during the exploration stage. Vegetation sampling at gold targets in Nevada and elsewhere has been crucial. We have used it extensively for porphyry copper mineralization - at Silverbell, Big Chunk and now the Tombstone Mining District/Hay Mountain. Vegetation geochemistry requires rigorous quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) standards to assure the integrity of the samples as they make their way through sample collection, prep and then the assay process conducted at ALS-Chemex, a certified assay lab, in Vancouver B.C. Canada and Reno Nevada. 

The 2011 veggie geochem work was carried out over the Hay Mountain main anomaly in a grid with sample points 200 meters apart along lines 400 meters apart. In 2013 geophysical studies, conducted via ZTEM airborne surveys by Geotech Ltd., along the same area as the geochemical veggie samples, were compiled yielding 2-D & 3-D magnetic and electromagnetic readings. Detailed study of the combined information, geological, geochemical and geophysical interprets a large multi- metal copper porphyry mineral body, per the Lowell-Guilbert Porphyry Copper Model. 

The Lowell-Guilbert Porphyry Copper Model & Southeast Arizona Orebodies

The characteristics at Hay Mountain are well known from that model and are semi quantitative in nature. Hay Mountain is like many many other copper dominated bodies intruded into limestone sediments in southeast Arizona, northern Mexico and other places in the world. They are generally referred to as porphyry copper skarn mineral bodies or polymetallic bodies and because of examples like Arizona’s Bisbee mines, Rosemont Camp, Morenci, Johnson Camp, all in Arizona and many similar copper and copper associate minerals throughout the world is confirmed. But because only the “marble front” (see my comments RE: “Sunnyside porphyry intrusion – Patagonia Mtns” Oct. 16) and over along with fluidized breccia pipes, and high grade (30% copper leakage along breccia pipes and low grade disseminated limonite after chalcopyrite) invisible to the naked eye and discovered by XRF. 

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This has been overlooked and misinterpreted by many geologists over the last hundred or more years. This is easy stuff if you are familiar with the porphyry copper model which can be demonstrated at the Copper Queen Mine at Bisbee, and Johnson Camp 30 miles to the northeast in the Dragoon Mtns, and at the newly discovered Taylor mine in the Patagonia mountains 30 miles to the southwest.  

Ongoing XRF Geochem Program

As we look for the right partners to develop Hay Mountain it is necessary to more precisely understand the gold, copper, moly, silver, cobalt, and nickel geochemical evidence; that is what we are focusing on now. We are continuing with the XRF program we started as part of the assessment work mandated on Arizona Mineral Exploration Permit lands last fall and this summer. (Current Assessment Work at Hay Mountain Aug. 16)

We have collected 731 XRF samples some of which are shown below in the contour map. We will complete the entire 100-meter XRF sample grid. We are about ? complete, suggesting a sample total of 1,500 samples. Winter will allow the sampling to go faster because of the cool weather. The work was slowed earlier this summer by a record setting monsoon season punctuated by extremely hot weather (ground temperatures as high as 140 ° F or more and still 120 F in October). The weather conditions hindered the XRF equipment from working efficiently because it has an internal temperature shut off that turns off the machine until it cools down, allowing it to be restarted.

The XRF program requires its own set of QA/QC standards to maintain the integrity of the readings, but overall the regime can be carried out in less time and at a substantially lower cost than traditional sample collection based geochem surveys for surface/near surface metals presence. Our field manager Jay Crawford is using a Thermo Scientific portable XRF analyzer, the Niton XL3t Goldd+, which delivers “accurate, instant elemental analysis with unmatched efficiency.” So far, we have seen promising hot spots and elevated concentrations for cobalt, copper, gold, iron, lead, nickel, silver, uranium and zinc. For now, the XRF technology does not cover the rare earth elements except for scandium. But we can do soil samples through ALS-Chemex to decide what the assay amounts for the heavy and light rare earth elements are. The XRF readings have been compelling and we are glad to have the added Hay Mountain intelligence to present to the organizations that may sign a confidentiality agreement.

These areas total 15,630,760 square feet. The cubic feet per ton of limestone rock is about 10. Therefore, for every 10 feet of depth 15.6 million tons of rock is contained in these polygons, and if these cubic feet contain cobalt and nickel, + copper etc. the potential for tons of recoverable cobalt and nickel, + copper and other things could be created. If the thickness is 100 feet, easily imaginable, then the amount of mineral bearing rock would be 156 million tons and if it went to a thousand feet the tonnage would be 1 billion, 560 million tons of potential mineralized rock.  As we could be over a vertical high-grade chimney of multi mineral rock, this is a reasonable high grade multi metal target. The total area of these four mineralized areas is about 0.56 square miles. There is about 13 smaller blobs of high Cobalt, nickel and other mineral present in the prospective areas and others may appear as the Niton survey continues.

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