Puma Exploration (TSX VENTURE:PUM) has announced the start of exploration activities on the Turgeon Copper Project, located only 25 kilometres northwest of Bathurst, New Brunswick.
The program consists of the drilling of a first 600-metre drillhole, the deepest so far on this project, to confirm the extension of mineralization at depth, the continuity of the mineralized zones, and to investigate the relationships between the various types of mineralization. More drilling will be conducted after geophysical surveys.
Previous drilling campaigns by Esso Minerals in 1979-82 and by Puma in 2008-09 have so far intersected three kinds of mineralization. These comprise copper-rich stockwork zones, massive sulphide zones with high copper-zinc values, and zinc-rich brecciated fault zones.
The Turgeon copper deposit consists so far of four mineralized lenses with high copper-zinc values, distributed over a length of 450 metres; two of these lenses outcrop on surface. Only one hole has reached a vertical depth of 400 metres. The known mineralized zones have thus not been tested to depth or laterally within the favourable horizons. Also, a number of untested surface geophysical anomalies that are located within the Turgeon area are drill-ready targets.
To better define the extent of the current zones and to discover new ones, a borehole and surface electromagnetic geophysical survey will be carried out as soon as the first drillhole is completed. The surface survey will provide a maximum depth of investigation of 500 metres below the surface and the borehole survey will investigate a radius of 200 metres around the hole. Following the interpretation of the geophysical surveys a second drilling campaign will be undertaken to test the priority targets identified by the current work and by previous works.