U.S.REPORT West Pride’s Arizona ground features big mineralized

The property would be a hard day’s ride from this hot, dusty town in an area steeped in the history of the American wild west. One would be hard pressed to find men to make that ride to the Dragoon Mountains in the latter half of the 19th century. This was an area controlled by Cochise, leader of the Chiricahuas, a powerful band of warriors unhappy with the white man and defiant of his laws. Perhaps a disappointment to the romantic, the property is now an easy, air-conditioned drive from Tucson, Ariz., 50 miles to the northwest.

Vancouver-based West Pride Industries (VSE) is now the owner of the project which includes 300 contiguous claims and is divided into three properties: Middlemarch, Stronghold and China Peak.

The properties lie along a general trend representing the axis of a basement up-lift stretching north from the Bisbee-Warren camp through West Pride’s properties about 30 miles away. The up-lift brought with it intrusive centres which provided the engines for many of the deposits found on the trend.

The Bisbee-Warren camp mined over 167 million tons of copper- lead-zinc-silver-gold ore worth more than $12 billion at today’s prices over its 100-plus-year life. Phelps Dodge (NYSE), owner of the property, is reported to be thinking of resuming mining in the area.

Other old producers in the area include the Tombstone camp, which produced almost three million tons of ore worth about $330 million at current metal prices, and the Courtland-Gleeson camp, which mined about 794,000 tons of ore worth $81 million. Santa Fe is developing a deposit in this camp estimated to contain more than 15 million tons grading 1.5% copper and 0.05 oz. gold per ton plus copper and silver mineralization.

The Mexican Hat deposit, being developed by Oneida Resources (VSE) and Placer Dome (TSE), lies about 10 miles to the south of West Pride’s property and is visible from one of the many showings on the Middlemarch property.

West Pride plans to concentrate its efforts on the Middlemarch in the coming year. The primary target on the property is a zone of alteration and mineralization more than 8,000 ft. long.

The property has had two past producers, the Missouri mine at the south end of the property and the Cobra Loma mine to the north. Mining took place in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

The Missouri is made up of two breccia pipes, rich in copper, gold and silver, intruding a replacement- skarn zone that is rich in zinc, copper and silver. Mining was confined primarily to one of the pipes leaving the replacement zone mineralization in place.

The workings cover a vertical extent of 600 ft. with stopes reaching widths of up to 60 ft. Historical production grades were in the order of 4% copper, 0.05 oz. gold and 2 oz. silver. Mining was halted in the early 1900s at the 8th level when striking mine workers sabotaged mining and milling equipment. Production was never resumed.

West Pride notes that the mineralization appears to be zoned with an increase in grade and width with depth. The zone of mineralization has been measured to be at least 110 ft. in width and is open in all directions. The replacement base metal zone adjacent to the breccia pipe was sampled on three levels returning an average grade of 1.68% copper, 0.54% lead, 2.90% zinc, and 1.94 oz. silver over a length of 50 ft.

Below the sixth level, the underground workings cut across an intrusive porphyry and into a second subparallel breccia pipe of reportedly higher grades and greater widths.

Mineralization below the lowest workings at the 8th level will be the target of an upcoming drilling program. The company plans to drill four holes for a total of about 3,000 ft. in the near future.

At the Cobra Loma, about 1,400 ft. north of the Missouri along the general trend, a small pit (about 50 ft. wide, 70 ft. long and 30 ft. deep) has exposed replacement type base metal mineralization. Continuous panel sampling done in 1989 graded 0.77% copper, 1.46% zinc, 0.025% lead, and 0.29 oz. silver over a length of 75 ft. The zone widens to the southwest under a relatively impervious shale cap.

A short adit at the northwest end of the pit followed a high-grade copper stringer 2-5 ft. wide for about 200 ft. in zinc-rich shales averaging 7% copper and 0.05 oz. gold.

Perhaps of more significance than the old workings were the results of an IP survey carried out over a relatively small portion of the property following the strike of the mineralized trend from the south of the Missouri, north toward the Cobra Loma.

Dan Innes, exploration manager for West Pride, is particularly excited by the results of the survey which showed a broad, very strong conductor over the entire grid and he noted that an upcoming exploration program will extend the grid to the north and to the south. It is believed that the conductor represents a pyrite-silica cap over replacement sulphide mineralization. The breccia pipes were also identified along the western flank of the IP anomaly.

With all the old showings on the property and the mineralization potential evidenced by the numerous gossans seen on the hill sides, Innes notes that it’s hard to determine where to concentrate the exploration program. Because so little work has been done on the property to date, he said this year’s program will include a regional geochemical survey which will give more direction to future programs.

Although West Pride intends to concentrate on the Middlemarch, the company’s other two properties are far from being without potential.

The China Peak property lies immediately to the west of the Middlemarch. A small amount of production is recorded from the San Juan mine, a high-grade manto-type zinc-silver deposit in limy sediments. Production records from one stope measuring 180x20x90 ft. report a grade of 40% zinc and 10 oz. silver from massive sphalerite ore. Sampling on the walls of the stope confirm lower-grade material running 5-20% zinc and 2-15 oz. silver. No modern exploration has been done on the property and it has never been drilled.

West Pride’s third property, the Stronghold, lies to the west and the south of China Peak and the Middlemarch. An old adit on the property was briefly examined by the company in 1989. A zone of massively clay altered granodiorite at the adit entrance is well mineralized and assayed 0.87% copper, 3.78% zinc, 1.45% lead and 4.53 oz. silver over the first 24 ft. At the southwest corner of the property replacement base metal sulphides are developed at the Festering mine.

Innes notes that although each of the properties has a very good chance of hosting small economic deposits, he is far more excited about the area’s potential for hosting a large Arizona style porphyry copper deposit with associated gold, silver and base metals.

He also predicted that while the whole copper belt is now starting to see a resurgence of exploration activity, it is just getting started.