District Copper Corp. (TSXV: DCOP) (“District Copper”, “District”, or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that crews have mobilized and field work is underway on its flagship Copper Keg porphyry copper project in the Kamloops mining Division, BC. The project covers 6628 ha and is located at the northern end of the Guichon batholith, approximately 20 kms north of the porphyry copper deposits currently being mined by Teck Resources Limited.
The 2025 program is planned as a multi-phase program with its initial objective to complete a preliminary reconnaissance of the entire project area collecting detailed data on features that characterize the porphyry copper deposit in the Highland Valley mining district. Phase 1 of the planned program focuses on differentiating various intrusive phases of the Guichon Creek Batholith, contact relations with the older Nicola Volcanics, alteration styles, mineralogical associations and mineralized structures to prioritize areas for additional follow-up exploration. The data collected in the initial phase would also be used to complete a re-interpretation of the results of the airborne and ground geophysical surveys in the context of a porphyry copper model for the project which sets the basis for Phase 2 of the 2025 exploration program.
Jevin Werbes, CEO, commented “District Copper is excited to get the 2025 exploration program underway. We are incorporating the historical exploration data into a pragmatic approach for our exploration effort by establishing an exploration model for Copper Keg based on the porphyry copper deposits in the Highland Valley. We feel this approach provides a results-based approach to guide the planned exploration in 2025.”
About the Copper Keg property
The following summary of historical exploration has been derived from the publicly available assessment reports on file with the Ministry of Mines for British Columbia. Historical exploration spans from the late 1800’s to 2012. The early-stage exploration is reported to consist of mining high grade copper veins.
The property exhibits the geochemical/alteration/lithologic features typical of the argillic altered portion of a porphyry copper system at/along the potassic/propylitic contact. The property is characterized by a large, pyrite bearing, argillic zone exposed along the surface trace of the Barnes Creek fault, a major NNW trending that crosses the Guichon Creek Batholith. The high-grade copper veins noted above, reflect supergene enrichment of distal base metal veins typically associated with a porphyry copper system.
The project is underlain by an intrusive phase of the Guichon Creek batholith which intrudes the surrounding Nicola Group rocks.
Petrographic work and K/Al: Na/Al ratios indicate an alteration package ranging from argillic-phyllic- potassic (all alteration phases associated with porphyry copper systems) supported by alteration minerals indicative of the inner actinolite subzone of a porphyry system as well as secondary biotite (Potassic alteration) and sericite (phyllic alteration), quartz veinlets with pyrite and chalcopyrite.
A large pyritic zone exhibits spatial association with the argillic altered zone and could be representative of what is commonly referred to in porphyry copper terms as the “pyrite shell”. Chalcopyrite, bornite and malachite (secondary copper carbonate) have been observed in outcrop and support the presence of a porphyry system.
Two highly altered gossans have been identified along the interpreted trace of the Barnes Creek fault, a major structure within the Guichon Creek batholith. The first area (800m long by 200m wide); the second area is 600 m south and smaller in extent. These gossans exhibit erratic copper concentrations, weak copper-silver soil anomalies and copper mineralization.
Since the Company acquired the property in 2021, it has completed mapping and prospecting, soil sampling, and ground and airborne geophysical programs. Results from this work are consistent with the presence of a porphyry copper system.
Soil sampling in 2024 located highly anomalous values on the recently acquired northern claims. Of the 520 samples, 8 returned values >100 ppm Cu (102.0, 122.2, 126.7, 132.2, 134.8, 136.9, 269.1 and 1517.4). This area is underlain by the Guichon Batholith, which hosts known copper porphyry deposits in this region, in contact with Nicola volcanics.
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