Second Critical Mineral Study Begins At Big Sandy Porphyry Copper Project

VANCOUVER – Bell Copper Corporation reported that the Arizona Geological Survey at the University of Arizona, with funding from the United States Geological Survey and the State of Arizona, has initiated a new study at the Company’s Big Sandy porphyry copper discovery to assess potential new resources of critical minerals in Arizona. The Company is contributing core samples from the Big Sandy porphyry copper project, a large, concealed porphyry copper-molybdenum project located in northwestern Arizona, approximately 30 kilometers from the Company’s Perseverance Project.
Several critical minerals are commonly enriched in deposits like Big Sandy. The core records the continuous transition from leached capping to supergene blanket. Initial Samples have been contributed from the Company’s drill core.
A previous study of Big Sandy core samples culminated in the publication of a University of Arizona Master’s Thesis entitled “Integrating Geochronology and Ore Mineralogy Constraints to Correlate the Formation of the Diamond Joe Pluton and Big Sandy Porphyry Copper Prospect, NW Arizona, USA” by Jonothan Chappell, generally supporting the Company’s concept of a genetic link between the Big Sandy porphyry and the root zone at Diamond Joe Peak, 13 kilometers to the west.
The Big Sandy core has been demonstrated to contain significant amounts of copper, rhenium, and silver, elements which, notably, the U.S.G.S. included on its 2025 Draft List of Critical Minerals.
Timothy Marsh, President and CEO, said, “Bell is pleased to contribute further samples of the Big Sandy core to aid this assessment of the nation’s critical mineral resources. Big Sandy’s status as one of the few complete profiles from leached capping through supergene enrichment in an unmined porphyry copper deposit gives the AZGS a great example to study.”