Copper Sulfide Drilled In Porphyry At Big Sandy Project

VANCOUVER - Bell Copper Corporation has drilled a supergene chalcocite (copper sulfide) deposit hosted by quartz porphyry at its Big Sandy project. Big Sandy is a large, truncated porphyry copper-molybdenum target located in northwestern Arizona, approximately 30 kilometers south of the Perseverance Project.

Drillhole BS-3, which was oriented to test a 2400 meter by 2100 meter area of high electrical conductivity that was detected in an earlier Magneto-telluric survey, passed out of gravel and into hematite-rich, pervasively sericitized quartz porphyry (i.e. "leached capping") at an inclined depth of 1192 meters. The true thickness of the gravel layers penetrated by BS-3 at an oblique angle is estimated to be 860 meters. Disseminated chalcocite (copper sulfide) and pyrite was first encountered at an inclined depth of 1303 meters, immediately beneath leached capping. Chalcocite variably overprints predominantly pyritic mineralization from inclined depths of 1303m to at least 1589m, the current bottom of BS-3. Chalcocite mineralization in this 286-meter interval is interrupted by spotty jarosite-bearing shear zones lacking pyrite and chalcocite. No copper oxide minerals have been encountered in the ongoing intersection.

Chalcocite (Cu2S, 80 percent by weight copper) is present as 1) steely black coatings surrounding disseminated pyrite, 2) partial to complete replacement of disseminated pyrite grains, and 3) partial to complete replacements of pyrite veins. Minor amounts of bornite (Cu5FeS4, 65 percent by weight copper) have been seen rimmed by chalcocite in the center of particular pyrite veins. To date, only trace quantities of chalcopyrite (CuFeS2, 33 percent by weight copper) have been encountered, mainly in the deepest few meters of core. Sparse quartz-molybdenite veinlets appear to increase in abundance with depth in BS-3.

Oriented core collected near the base of the gravel cover shows that at BS-3 the porphyry system is tilted about 45 degrees from its orientation before faulting. This tilt suggests that the supergene copper blanket in BS-3 can be targeted at shallower depth in the direction of drillhole BS-1, located 1200 meters to the east. A 2-meter interval of chalcocite supergene enrichment underlying hematitic leached capping was cut at a depth of 936 meters in BS-1, suggesting continuity of supergene copper enrichment and porphyry-related alteration across a distance of 1200 meters. The intervening ground showed anomalously high electrical conductivity in the August 2020 magneto-telluric survey. A future drillhole is now contemplated to test that shallower target. Drillhole BS-2, located 2.3 kilometers southeast of BS-3, showed only trace amounts of chalcocite, spotty chalcopyrite and pyrite veins, and "fringy" propylitic alteration in Precambrian host rocks.

Tim Marsh, President and CEO, said, "Bell Copper continues to build on the discovery at Big Sandy, first announced in January 2020 with BS-1 cutting chalcocite, chalcopyrite, and molybdenite mineralization hosted by a strongly altered 74.2 Ma porphyry. Our original model of a decapitated, large copper-rich top to the Laramide Diamond Joe porphyry root, which concept also underpins the exploration target at our nearby Perseverance property, is being borne out in the ongoing Big Sandy drilling program. The Company intends to follow the copper outward and downward in BS-3 to a logical conclusion, and immediately follow up with a 500-meter step-out hole from the same drill pad. Meanwhile, we will construct a new drill site under our existing permits directly above the BS-3 intersection and mobilized a second drill to push down additional stepout holes from that pad."