The Bombardier project is approximately 240 km SE of Reno, Nevada.
Ownership
100% owned (exploitation license)
Looking to JV
History
The Bombardier Project is located near the southeastern corner of the Santa Fe Mining District (also referred to as the Luning District). This district was discovered in 1879 and was mined for silver until World War I. The district as a whole produced more than $1,800,000 in copper during World War I. Small amounts of tungsten, silver, gold, lead and iron ore have been shipped from the mining area. Although the project area has several prospect pits and adits, no known production has been recorded for this area.
In 1973 Colorado Energy Corporation (subsidiary of Martin Oil Service, Inc.), under the guidance of Gary Grauberger, staked 172 unpatented claims which where leased by the Conoco-Getty Joint Venture in 1974-1976. Up until the staking by Grauberger, no drilling was known to exist in the project area. Within a 10 mile radius of the area staked in 1973, several major mining companies were known to be exploring other copper targets. These included Amax, Banner, Bear Creek, Dennison, Duval, Iso, Noranda, Occidental, Phelps Dodge, Quintana and Texas Gulf. Today, several junior companies are exploring within this same 10 mile radius and two almost butt up against the Bombardier Property. These two include Canyon Copper Corporation at New York Canyon, located 4 miles to the west and International Millennium Mining Corporation (IMMC) at the Simon Mine, which is located 6 miles to the northeast.
From 1974 to 1976 the Conoco-Getty joint venture drilled three core holes and four rotary holes within the project area.
The Bombardier Project lies within a belt of Triassic to Tertiary age sedimentary, volcanic and intrusive rocks that occupy a northwest trending structural zone referred to as the Walker Lane Trend. This trend lies within a zone of disrupted structure at least 300 miles long and 50-100 miles wide that forms a transition between the northwest trending Sierra Nevada and the north to northeast trending ranges of the Great Basin Province. The trend of geologic units define an arcuate bend, convex to the south, with trends of N45°W in the Silver Peak area, trends near E-W in the Palmettos and Magruder Mountain area, and N20°E in the Montezuma Range, just west of Goldfield. This arcuate band is referred to by Albers & Stewart (1972) as the Silver Peak-Palmetto-Montezuma oroflex.
The Basin and Range Province consists of a series of north-northeast trending fault bounded mountain ranges separated by wide valleys. The Sierra Nevada Province is a large fault block that consists mainly of igneous rocks that have been emplaced as a result of subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the North American Plate. This area lies within an active and major tectonic system that displays both extensional and transcurrent fault movements. Many gold and silver deposits have been discovered in the Walker Lane Trend including the famous Comstock Lode and the mining camps of Rawhide and Goldfield. The most recent producer of gold in the area was FMC's Paradise Peak located 20 miles to the northeast.
Project Geology
The Bombardier Project is made up of carbonate and volcanic rocks of the Luning Formation which have been locally intruded by intermediate stocks. The older rocks are unconformably overlain by Tertiary volcanic rocks which incompletely rim a window exposing the older rocks.
Mineralization
The predominant metallic phases that occur in the project area are pyrite and magnetite. Pyrrhotite is occasionally found in the mafic metavolcanic rocks. Chalcopyrite is present in some of the skarn but is mostly altered to copper silicates and carbonates.
There are three styles of copper mineralization observed at Bombardier:
1) along fracture surfaces and veinlets in skarn;
2) associated with disseminated clots of calcite and/or epidote in skarn; and
3) disseminated in intrusive and metavolcanic rocks.
The most common form is the fracture controlled and it occurs predominately in metavolcanic flows and breccias. Chalcopyrite is the major copper bearing mineral and associated with it is magnetite, calcite, serpentine and tremolite (actinolite). Calcite + wollastonite + chlorite + epidote veinlets also commonly contain copper-bearing minerals. Disseminated copper mineralization is rarely found in the granodiorite where it occurs as an oxide mineral but is more commonly found as the primary phase in the metavolcanic rocks.
Geochemistry
Early historical rock chip samples contained copper values up to 9.85%, gold up to 0.069 opt, silver up to 7.05 opt, molybdenum values up to 250 ppm, lead values up to 50 ppm and zinc values up to 0.67%. The locations of these samples are known and have been plotted on a map. To date, sixty rock chip samples and 405 soil samples have been collected by Western Pacific. The rock chip samples contain a high of 0.035 opt gold, 16.61 opt silver, 19.8% copper, 1.75% zinc, 5760 ppm arsenic and >10,000 ppm bismuth.
Historical data shows that Conoco conducted a rock chip geochemical survey over the main prospect area on a 200 foot grid. A total of 275 rock chip samples were collected along this grid. In addition, a 500 foot grid was completed over the marble area located near drill hole CM-3. A total of 70 samples were collected on this grid. No soil geochemical sampling is known to exist over the property. All samples were analyzed for copper, molybdenum, zinc, lead, silver, gold and manganese. At this time Western Pacific only has the geochemical results for copper, molybdenum, zinc and manganese.
Anomalous copper values cluster around both the northern intrusive area and the southern intrusive area. Copper values from the northern intrusives range from 60 ppm to 995 ppm and values from the southern intrusives range between 15 ppm and 140 ppm. The skarn contained copper values between 190 ppm and 1.90% indicating that the skarn appears to be the better host for copper mineralization. The contoured copper values show that mineralization continues under the Tertiary rocks to the northwest which will be a target for additional rock chip sampling, detail mapping and soil geochemical sampling.
Anomalous zinc values appear to be more anomalous along the edges of the northern intrusives. Values between 25 ppm and 330 ppm occur in the skarn and marble adjacent to the intrusives and values ranging from 50 ppm and 100 ppm appear to project beneath the Tertiary rocks. In the southern intrusive area zinc ranges from 5 ppm to 20 ppm. Molybdenum appears to be anomalous in the intrusives but not in the skarn, marble or limestone. The northern intrusives contain molybdenum up to 149 ppm and the southern intrusives up to 52 ppm.
Geophysics
Conoco conducted three induced polarization (IP) surveys and one ground magnetic survey over the project area. Western Pacific is looking into contracting a geophysics consultant to review this data, provide a written discussion of the results and recommend future geophysical surveys that will help evaluate the property.
Historical Drilling and Results
Between 1974 and 1976, Conoco completed three core holes and four rotary holes for a total of 7,347 feet of drilling in the project area. Western Pacific knows the approximate location of the three core holes and the general location of the four rotary holes. The exact location will be determined during the up-coming field season.
Drill hole CM-1 (core) was collared just west of the main northern intrusive and drilled a -60° hole bearing S75°E towards the intrusive. The total depth of this hole was 852 feet. The hole was collared in marble and passed through varies thicknesses of marble, quartz monzonite and skarn until it intersected the main intrusive body at 498 feet where it remained until the bottom of the hole (852 feet). Two zones of significant mineralization were encountered: 60 feet of 0.13% copper in marble and an intrusive dike between 97 feet and 157 feet and 20 feet of 1.19% copper (including 5 feet of 4.2% copper and 0.53 opt silver) in garnet skarn between 397 feet and 417 feet. It is not known at this time whether or not Conoco assayed their samples from the drilling for gold. No gold numbers for the drilling are known to exist. This actually makes sense because gold was usually used as a trace element for the exploration of copper and usually not assayed for in drilling prior to the 1980s.
Drill hole CM-2 (core) was also collared in marble north of the main northern intrusive and was drilled at -60° bearing S3°W towards the intrusive. The total depth of this hole was 994 feet. The drill hole intersected intrusive at 445 feet which is probably a sill, dike or off shoot of the main intrusive for 186 feet and then continued in skarn, hornfels and marble to the bottom of the hole. Three zones of significant mineralization where encountered in this hole: 50 feet of 0.23% copper with 0.14 opt silver from 70 feet to 120 feet, 10 feet of 0.17% copper from 640 feet to 650 feet and 50 feet of 0.245% copper from 790 feet to 840 feet.
Drill hole CM-3 (core) was collared in Tertiary volcanics approximately 1,300 feet west of the main intrusive area drilled by CM-1 and CM-2. This hole was a vertical drill hole that was drilled to a total depth of 2,000 feet. The hole was collared in volcanics, drilled 212 feet where it encountered a major fault zone to 550 feet. At that point it entered into and stayed in limestone and marble to the bottom of the hole. This hole, although barren of significant mineralization, shows that potential host rock for additional mineralization does lie beneath the volcanic cover.
Limited data exists for the four rotary holes which were designed to test for mineralization beneath volcanic cover. Drill hole 4 contained 909 feet of volcanics, drill hole 5 drilled 195 feet of volcanics before intersecting 605 feet of marble and hornfels containing low level copper values but anomalous zinc values up to 0.12% and anomalous lead values up to 0.22%. Drill hole 6 encountered 400 feet of volcanics prior to being terminated for budgetary reasons and drill hole 7 drilled to a total depth of 805 feet and remained in volcanic the entire length of the drill hole.
Targets and Work Program
The Bombardier project consists of Triassic Luning Formation that has been intruded by what is believed to be Cretaceous age granodiorite to quartz monzonite stocks and dikes. This activity caused both metamorphic and metasomatic effects resulting in the calc-silication and metallization of limestone, volcanics and some of the intrusive rocks. The original exploration program conducted by the Conoco-Getty joint venture focused solely on copper exploration and basically ignored the gold potential of the area.
Bombardier has many similarities to other copper-gold skarns known to exist throughout the world and similarities to several that have been worked on and written about by the principals in Western Pacific. For this reason, The Company is recommending an aggressive exploration program for this property. Recommended work on the project should consist of staking an additional 40 to 60 claims, detail geologic mapping, conducting a 100 meter by 50 meter soil geochemical survey (completed), additional rock chip sampling (200 samples), re-evaluation of the historical geophysics (after which additional programs might be recommended), regional stream sediment survey and drilling.
