Yorkton analysts court Princess in Newfoundland Investment Commentary

Mining analysts Doug Leishman and Art Ettlinger are suggesting that speculative investors closely monitor the activities of Cornerstone Capital Resources (CTP-V), a junior company holding a large property position in an area newly recognized for its copper potential.

The dynamic duo from Yorkton Securities recently visited Cornerstone’s Princess group of properties in the Musgravetown area of Newfoundland’s Bonavista Peninsula. The 56-sq.-km Princess property is under option to copper giant Phelps Dodge (PD-N), which recently completed geophysical surveys, geological mapping and geochemical sampling. The major is reviewing the data before deciding whether or not to proceed to a second phase of exploration.

On its own, Cornerstone is exploring its 188-sq.-km land package comprising the South Princess, Aviation and West Princess blocks.

The combined land package is underlain by late Proterozoic, submarine and non-marine volcanic and sedimentary rocks belonging to the Avalon Terrane, the easternmost of four main tectonic domains comprising Newfoundland.

The analysts note, in a recent report, that the sequence of amygdaloidal basalts, sandstones and rhyolite pebble conglomerates (all of which contain varying levels of copper mineralization) displays many similarities to rocks underlying the Keweenaw Peninsula of northern Michigan. “This similarity is potentially significant, as the Keweenaw basalts and intercalated Copper Harbor and Kearsage conglomerates have produced several billion pounds of native copper from the Keweenaw native copper district.”

The analysts caution that all of Cornerstone’s properties are at an early stage of development and are grassroots in nature. “Although work to date on many of the showings [we] visited consisted of little more than initial grab sampling, the various styles of copper and copper-gold mineralization and wide variety of mineralized rock types throughout the Princess group are impressive,” they add.

Phelps Dodge has so far spent $200,000 exploring its optioned ground. Initial geophysical results have identified several northeasterly striking conductors that roughly parallel the regional geologic strike of the rock units. Additionally, the analysts note, several induced-polarization anomalies are associated with observed copper mineralization at surface and with single-station soil geochemical anomalies.

On its own land package, Cornerstone has identified three targets of interest, including the Viking showing, where massive red sandstone beds mineralized with malachite, chalcocite and possibly bornite were observed near the northwestern corner of the West Princess property.

“Copper mineralization within redbed sandstone units, which are extensively exposed through the central and western portion of the property, represents one of the better potential targets within the Princess group of properties,” the analysts note.

As for Newfoundland itself, Leishman and Ettlinger make no secret of their displeasure with the government’s attempt to force the owners of the Voisey’s Bay nickel-copper-cobalt discovery to process their ores through to finished product in the province. Moreover, they say, the government is not likely to change this unpopular provision in its mining code until after the Voisey’s Bay matter is settled.

“While this is clearly a hard-line stand against mining, it seems to be directed solely to Voisey’s Bay,” they conclude. “Provincial lawmakers understand they have done damage to the public’s perception of Newfoundland and Labrador and appear to be working hard on damage control.”