LMSL Copper/Silver Project – Avante Mining (TSXV: AVA)

Introduction

Avante Mining Corp. (TSXV: AVA) is a Canadian-based exploration company with a diversified portfolio of mineral projects in British Columbia and Labrador, Canada. With a primary focus on Battery Metals, the company has recently acquired a nickel project just 50 km north of the Voisey’s Bay mine, which boasts nickel grades in excess of 1%. This project will be the primary focus in 2023. The company also owns the LMSL Copper Gold & Silver Project in the Nicola Mining Division of British Columbia and is surrounded by and along trend with three major mining operations. This project underwent a full suite data analysis by Earthlabs (formerly known as “GoldSpot”), with permits in hand, LMSL is ready to be drilled. The third project held by Avante is the Blackdome Gold Project, an early-stage gold and silver property located in the Clinton Mining Division of British Columbia. This asset has good upside potential based on results from the sampling that has been done at surface. All three assets are located in mining-friendly jurisdictions and Avante is well-positioned to capture growth opportunities while building long-term shareholder value.

The LMSL Project

The “LMSL” or Lucky Mike Project is located 20 kms north of Merritt, British Columbia and within the Nicola Mining Division. The property is made up of 42 claim blocks totaling over 12,000 hectares and is accessed via a well-developed network of logging roads. It is proximal to power, water, local labor force and is surrounded by several mining operations and new discoveries such as the Highland Valley Mine, owned by Teck Resources, which is the largest copper mine in Canada. The MDP Project owned by Kodiak Copper, which is a new discovery, and the New Afton Project owned by New Gold which is a high-grade copper-gold alkali porphyry deposit. In addition, gaining some recent attention is the MPD property to the south, currently being worked on by Kodiak Copper Corp. (See Figure 1)

The property is also home to a number of past producing copper-lead-zinc-silver mines. Historical reports highlight shipments of 118 tons of ore with an average grade of 1 g/t Au and 2,014.8 g/t Ag from one location on the property. Notably, there are several key copper, gold, and silver prospects yet to be explored by modern techniques to which the company is looking forward to follow up on.

Geology & Mineralization

Swakum Mountain lies within the Intermontane Belt of the B.C. Cordillera. This belt includes a large number of major, past and present, porphyry copper producers, some of which occur in the Kamloops-Merritt district such as the Highland Valley and Afton. Much of the area consists of folded, Nicola Group (Triassic) Volcanics with minor inter bedded sedimentary units. These rocks are intruded by large north trending – felsic to intermediate intrusions generally located east and west of the mountain. Nicola Group rocks on the mountain strike north to northeasterly with generally steep dips. For the most part they consist of andesitic flows and tuffs, agglomerates, occasional basalt and rhyolites. A mixed volcanic sedimentary unit consisting of tuffs, limey sediments and a prominent limestone has northeasterly strike and crosses the Old Crown Grants on the mountain which spans over a 2.5 km strike length.

Project History

• Lucky Mike was first discovered in 1916 by prospector Oscar Schmidt. An inclined shaft dipping west followed the mineralized vein down dip for 35 meters and two short drifts were driven chasing the veins at 7m and 20 meters respectively.  These areas produced a 22 ton ore sample which was sent out for processing and it returned grades of 4.66% Cu.
• In 1926 the claims were optioned to Thelma Mines Ltd, who continued development work until 1930 with a 220ft shaft, drifting and crosscutting on multiple levels. The project was then optioned off to Sheffield Gold & Silver Mines ltd.
• In 1934 Sheffield Gold & Silver Mines Ltd was mining on the property until a fire destroyed the head frame and building. At that point the claims were sold in a court order and remained inactive for the most part until the 1940’s.
• In 1942-43, W.B. Milner conducted numerous trenches and open cuts tracing the skarn 80 metres along a north-south strike. Two bands of skarn are separated by a greenstone unit. Numerous tungsten values reneging from 0-1% to 1% WO3 occur over variable widths. Then, later in 1943 the Strategic Metals Committee part of the Wartime investigation for Tungsten drilled 14 diamond drill holes over a 100 metre strike length. Eight holes intersected a weighted average of 0.312% W03 over an average width of 25 feet. However no samples were assayed for gold or copper. The tungsten deposit was considered too low grade with poor continuity of scheelite mineralization.
• Between 1958-65 Torwest Resources Ltd. conducted work including trenching, geophysical, geochemical and geological surveys. In addition, two or more drill programs were completed which consisted of 23 holes over 150 metre strike length on the Lucky Mike, skarn zone. Based on these programs plus 1943 data, Torwest defined two east dipping tungsten-skarn bodies.
• In 1973, Consulting Engineer C.H.Donaldson estimated “a drill-proven” reserves (historical) for the Lucky Mike deposit of 350,000 tons grading 0.56% copper, 0.30% W03, and 0.60 oz/ton silver.
• In 1980, owner at the time W. Petrie dewatered and upgraded the old workings followed by a small sampling program. After that the project remained inactive until the 1980’s, when Lacana was brought in to do more geological mapping and geochemical work in an attempt to create new targets around old workings.
• Between July 10 and August 15th, 1986, Altar Resources Ltd completed detailed geological mapping, sampling, and geophysical surveys which resulted in outlining an oxidized zone 600 meters long, 25 to 70 meters wide with very encouraging silver assay results. A few samples were taken from this zone and assayed between 50.6 g/t Ag to 2,228.4 g/t Ag.
• By 1988, Corona Resources acquired the property and had enough information that a drilling program was put in place to test the newly identified targets.  In connection with this program, a comprehensive airborne geophysical survey was completed over what is now the southern half of the Rey Lake property. At this point it became clear that previous operators drilled down dip and ultimately missed they key target areas. Unfortunately, Corona could not conclude an agreement with the owners of the adjacent claim to Lucky Mike and thus allowed their option to lapse.
• In July 1991, Strato Geological Engineering Ltd. completed a preliminary I.P. program for Hera Resources Corp. This was followed by a comprehensive I.P. survey conducted during the spring of 1993 and in turn, was immediately followed by a drilling program. This I.P. survey covered parts of the Southeast Sophia claim and just north of the Lucky Mike deposit. Drilling in 1993 took place just to the northeast of the Southeast Sophia claim.
• In 2011, ArcPacific Resources (Formerly Plate Resources) optioned the property and did some exploration drilling of their own along with a range of geophysics. This project remained the main focus of the company until the name change to Arc Pacific in late 2016.
• In 2011, ArcPacific Resources (Formerly Plate Resources) funded an airborne geophysical survey over the property. Initial work included, an airborne geophysical program of 576-line km covering all but 3 new claims, by Precision Geo Surveys of Vancouver, British Columbia. This included magnetic and radiometric surveys and small program of sampling and mapping from the Lucky Mike and Sunshine mineralized areas. Several magnetic anomalies were identified which appear to correlate with potassic radiometric responses, indicating that the intrusive plutons which have magnetite content also have potassic content, either as original K-feldspar components or as potassic alteration. This is consistent with the model for intrusive hosted copper porphyries.
• On January 19, 2021 Avante (formerly ArcPacific) announced the completion of an extensive data compilation program resulting in the identification of highly elevated gold, copper and silver occurrences spread across the then 8,136 hectare Lucky Mike Silver Lode (LMSL) Project. The work program compiled all available data including 75 separate reports dating back as far as the 1950’s into a single merged database. This data includes 11,306 rock, soil, silt and core samples containing 280,716 values for multiple elements, and multiple historic geophysical surveys.

Current Exploration

In May of 2022, Avante announced that Goldspot (now Earthlabs) did a full suite analysis on the LMSL property and applied Artificial Intelligence to provide drill hole targeting. Highlights from the analysis include;

• Confirmed copper porphyry occurrences with open-ended upside potential on the LMSL Project.
• Project located along a regional scale mineralized corridor with ideal geology to host copper deposits.
• 24 areas with multi-factor indicators showing existing or potential to host mineralization.
• Clear work plan and recommendations laid out for exploring target areas.
• Large 120 square kilometre project area give LMSL Project district scale potential.

Figure 1 – Goldspot Priority Targets

GoldSpot produced priority sequence for their targets based on a matrix probability method and recommended specific work programs for each target. The Company is now taking these recommendations under review and plans to proceed with field work plans. The review identified major regional structures connecting the LMSL Project with the adjacent Highland Valley copper deposits (owned by Teck Resources Limited) and highlights geological similarities between the LMSL Project and the New Afton and Iron Mask Area Porphyry deposits (owned by New Gold Inc.).

The full analysis report can be found here

• In May, 2022, As a follow up to the work done by GoldSpot, Avante mobilized a ground crew to do some follow up prospecting.
• In June they announced the discovery of artisanal mine workings in an area with very little data and grab samples grading up to 20.1 g/t gold, 130 g/t silver, 0.44% Cu; and 3.6% Cu, 0.7 g/t gold, 211 g/t silver were discovered in close proximity.
• In September 2022, Avante received drill permits on the LMSL

Updates will be provided as they occur

Disclosure

At the time of creation, Avante Mining is a client of Insidexploration Analytics Inc.

Disclaimer

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