Norden Crown Metals Corporation has officially announced the acquisition of Domestic Copper Corporation, a privately held British Columbia company. According to certain reports, the stated deal will enable Norden Crown to acquire upto 60% interest in the Smart Creek copper-gold porphyry project, located approximately 16 kilometers north of Philipsburg, Montana. More on the same would reveal how the project consists of 570 unpatented federal mining claims (4,072 Ha) and 45 patented claims (312 Ha) in Granite County, Montana. Furthermore, we must acknowledge that porphyry-related copper, gold, silver and molybdenum mineralization here is hosted in sedimentary rocks of the Proterozoic Belt Supergroup and includes the reactive Helena Formation (argillaceous carbonate sedimentary rocks), something which is also the main host to mineralization at the property. This particular property even has Helena Formation containing significant mineralization, including copper-gold-silver-lead-zinc replacement style mineralization, as well as porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum mineralization. To go along with that, the project in question contains two drill ready, high priority targets known as the “Smart Creek” porphyry target and the “Sunrise” replacement target that are separated by 1.5 kilometers. In the case of Smart Creek, porphyry related alteration and mineralization, as evidenced by surface showings (adits, pits and shafts) and surface geochemistry, define an anomalous footprint measuring 5 by 3 kilometers. As for the past producing Sunrise Mine target, it includes replacement style lenses of high-grade copper, gold, and silver, lenses that have potential for expansion through exploration drilling, along with potential for an associated porphyry “root zone”.
Coming back to Smart Creek, there are available an estimated 40 historical diamond drill holes and 5 surface trenches for the target. Markedly enough, these holes cut significant copper oxide and sulphide mineralization, and alteration. They are also collectively consistent with a distal copper-gold-molybdenite porphyry environment. Moving on, with 3.5 meter minimum composite lengths, minimum grades of 0.1% copper, and up to 3.5 meters of internal dilution, the target has 105 significant copper intercepts in 26 drill holes and 4 trenches ranging from 3.5 meters of 0.14% copper to 109.73 meters at 0.75%.
“The acquisition of the Smart Creek property marks the beginning of Norden Crown’s transition to copper and precious metal exploration in the Americas, allowing the Company and its shareholders to leverage the evolving EV and precious metals markets. The State of Montana is among the highest ranked mining jurisdictions globally by the Fraser Institute and the Smart Creek project has key explorable characteristics, including reactive host rocks, a large copper and gold endowed footprint, and previous drilling data,” said Patricio Varas, Chairman and CEO of Norden Crown Metals.
Beyond its present value and future potential, the Domestic Copper’s Smart Creek project also has a fair amount of history to it. You see, historic mining activity from the Project area included high-grade copper-silver ore (several thousand tonnes) taken from the Copper State Mine prior to 1930. Furthermore, the effort would see placer mining between 1943 and 1947 concentrated scheelite for the war effort which resulted in ~215,000lbs of 63% WO39. Turning our attention towards the previous exploration on the property, it includes drilling conducted in the late 1960s by Bear Creek Mining (5 holes) and Melissa Syndicate (8 holes), targeting near surface copper-silver (+/- lead, zinc) mineralization in search of sediment-hosted copper. Hold on, there is more, considering we haven’t yet touched on how Smart Creek Resources completed 12 lines of IP between 2010 and 2012, all while attempting to drill 2 exploratory holes which did not reach target depth. One more detail we haven’t yet referred to is rooted in the fact that United States Bureau of Mines, Exxon, Utah International, Noranda and Pegasus have all conducted exploration drilling programs at Sunrise targeting tungsten, copper and gold.
Talk about certain transactional details related to the acquisition, the outstanding Domestic Copper Shares will be exchanged for the Norden Crown Shares on the basis of a share exchange ratio of one Domestic Copper Share for two and two-thirds Norden Crown Shares.
