Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Vancouver, B.C.: Bell Copper Corporation ("Bell Copper" or the "Company") (TSX-V Symbol: BCU) announces that the Company has completed the first drillhole in the current drill program at its Kabba Project, Mohave County, Arizona. Drillhole K-5 was completed to a depth of 351 meters, penetrating weakly altered, foliated granodiorite cut by numerous sheeted limonite-ankerite veinlets carrying strongly anomalous (as determined on site by Niton XRF) arsenic, zinc, and manganese beneath 218 meters of volcanic cover rocks. Weak copper enrichment was noted near the bottom of the hole associated with disseminated residual pyrite. The association of arsenic, zinc, and manganese in these veinlets is characteristic of the outer mineralized shell of porphyry copper systems. The degree of hydrothermal alteration in drillhole K-5 was weaker than that in K-4, the Company's previous drillhole completed in 2007 at a site 1.2 kilometers to the west. Quartz-molybdenite veinlets and abundant porphyritic dikes that were seen in K-4 were not seen in K-5, suggesting that K-4 is more proximal to the sought-after porphyry copper system.
Integration of the new drill information from K-5 with data from nearby outcrops and data from drillhole K-4 leads the Company to a permitted drill site one kilometer south of drillhole K-5 and 1.5 kilometers southeast of drillhole K-4 for the next drill test. This drill site is situated along the west-northwesterly trending projection of wide alteration bands exposed in outcrop one kilometer to the east-southeast, where sericitically altered quartz porphyry plugs are associated with patchy jarosite and veinlets carrying elevated arsenic, copper, molybdenum, and selenium. Scheelite (calcium tungstate) is also most abundant in this outcrop area.
The purpose of the current drilling program is to detect beneath shallow cover (0-200 meters) the decapitated top of a major porphyry copper-molybdenum system. The faulted root in the footwall of this system shows strong quartz vein stockworks, orthoclase flooding, and greisenous sericite alteration across 15 square kilometers of Laramide age quartz monzonite porphyry and surrounding wallrocks. Drilling by the Company in 2007 (hole K-4) intersected over 900 meters of sericitic alteration in what is believed to be the western edge of the faulted hangingwall of this porphyry system beneath 100 meters of cover. Diamond drilling in the present program will involve the completion of at least two more drillholes to depths of 700 to 800 meters centered about 1.5 kilometers southeast of hole K-4. The drillholes will test the central part of the hangingwall target on roughly 1-kilometer centers. The program is expected to be completed in about 7 more weeks.
No mineral resource has been identified by the Company on the Kabba Project. There is no certainty that the exploration work being conducted in this drilling program will result in the identification of rocks that might eventually become a mineral resource.
The Qualified Person for the Kabba Drill Program and this news release is Timothy Marsh, Ph.D., P.Eng., the Company's Vice President of Exploration.
Kabba Project, Arizona, USA
Timothy Marsh, VP Exploration, Bell Copper Corporation, Vancouver, B.C. CanadaLOCATION: The Kabba porphyry copper project is located in Mohave County in northwestern Arizona. The project is situated approximately 19 miles southeast of Kingman and 150 miles northwest of Phoenix. The company controls over 10,000 acres on the highly productive Copper Creek-Resolution-Bagdad-Mineral Park porphyry trend.
STORY: Exploration of a 12 kilometer long by 1.5 kilometer wide Laramide-age porphyry Mo/Cu system on the western edge of the Kabba prospect was conducted between 1959 and 1984 by Bear Creek Exploration, Union Carbide, AMAX, Cerromin, Conoco, Hanna, Kerr-McGee, Santa Fe, and Noranda. These companies demonstrated 15 square kilometers of intense greisen and potassic alteration, quartz veining, and highly anomalous molybdenum and copper contents, but failed to locate an economic deposit.
This outcropping porphyry system appears to be a deep level root zone exposure benewth and potential copper shell. A major normal faul located on the west edge of the Kabba prospect separates this root zone from a down-dropped block that may contain the richer copper-bearing parts of this porphyry system. Detailed work programs including mapping, geophysics, geochemistry and drilling support Bell Copper's proposition that a truncated major Mo-Cu porphyry system lies under shallow cover at Kabba.
GEOLOGY/DEPOSIT: Integration of surface and drill data provide a 15 square kilometer target area extending from the last drill hole (K-4) to newly mapped outcrops showing quartz porphyry intrusions overprinted by sericitic alteration and Mo-Cu-As-Se-W mineralization. A seismic study showed that the fault cuts the porphyry at a surprisingly shallow angle of 30�. Reconstruction of a basalt marker found on both sides of the fault suggests that the more prospective part of the Kabba porphyry system lies about 5.6 kilometers east of the greisenous root zone. Drilling confirmed the shallow dip of the fault and in K-4 cut more than 900 meters of variably sericitized rocks, including 20 andesite porphyry dikes. Mineralization in the drillhole included multiple molybdenite-bearing quartz veinlets, local arsenic-rich pyritic breccia, and common disseminated fluorite. These strong similarities with the footwall outcrops more than 5 kilometers to the west make it likely that K-4 penetrated the hangingwall of the dismembered porphyry system. The thickness of cover rocks at the K-4 site was only 100 meters, suggesting that most of the 15-square kilometer target area will also be under relatively shallow cover. Further drilling is Planned for Q1 2009.
Kabba Project
Bell Copper CorporationKabba Target Map
Composite of many information types including 1960's vintage soil sampling results for molybdenum showing very high Mo levels across 15 square kilometers (blue,yellow, and orange shading), Laramide porphyry intrusion (bright red outline), historic
Diamond drilling by other companies (small red dots to left of image), Bell's 2007
Diamond drillholes K-1 through K-4, Bell's permitted 2008 drillholes (blue symbols labeled "A" through "H"), Bell's property outline (dashed red polygon), and color coded Niton geochemical analyses of outcropping veinlets containing Mo-Cu-Se-As (cluster of red, orange, yellow, green, and blue dots), Bell's target area outlined in solid pale red, all superimposed over a properly scaled image of Chuquicamata, the world's largest porphyry copper deposit.
Kabba Project
Bell Copper CorporationKabba Target Map
Geological cross section showing the decapitated Laramide porphyry system (TKqmp), and Bell's target area beneath relatively shallow Tertiary volcanic deposits (Tv)
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