The lithium miner broadened its horizons back in October when it picked up a 51.54% stake in the project – with the potential to earn up to 100% – diversifying from lithium with an advanced gold project in a prime US location.

While the district is known for historic copper, silver and gold mining, the Independence project was focused mainly on the gold and silver mineralisation in all historic drilling.

This data set review has shown that, in addition to gold and silver, there is considerable base metal potential across the project, with up to 4% Copper (20 intercepts >0.3% Cu), up to 6874g/t silver, and intercepts like:

  • 15.2m at 1.2% Cu and 0.7g/t Au from 140.2m (AGEI-29); and
  • 7.6m at 1429g/t Ag and 2.9g/t Au from 22.9m (GM-52).

Plus, 38 drill-holes had intercepts equal to or exceeding 100g/t silver, with some values capped at 100g/t due to the samples not being submitted for analysis beyond the detection limit.

The company says this identification of multi-commodity mineralisation at the project provides additional priority targets for drill testing in the coming months.

In addition, mapping has revealed multiple cross-cutting mineralised events over the entire project area, which means there’s scope for more shallow gold oxide, skarn and porphyry discoveries.

“We are pleasantly surprised by the historical data at the Independence project, which highlights impressive results including grades of up to 4% copper and 6874g/t silver,” James Bay Minerals (ASX:JBY) executive director Andrew Dornan said.

“Historically, the project had little focus on metals outside of gold, but these results reveal significant potential for copper and higher grade silver.

“Notably, a portion of the silver results were capped at 100g/t Ag due to assay limits.”

The company says this warrants further targeting and exploration.

“These easy-to-target zones, combined with additional opportunities for shallow gold, skarn and porphyry discoveries, position the Independence project for significant growth moving forward,” Dornan said. 

Maximum in-hole results coded by Cu % underlain by the mapped Wilson monzogranite sill and porphyry dykes. Pic: JBY

Assays from rock chip sampling are pending, and an initial 2000m drill program is underway, initially focusing on the poorly tested Yukon Hill.

Priority targets delineated from the historic review now include the Wilson Intrusive target, which was poorly tested by wide-spaced drilling at inconsistent orientations.

It also hosts copper mineralisation which increases in grade southward but has yet to be drill tested.

JBY will also focus on porphyry dykes hosting copper mineralisation and epithermal gold-silver mineralisation is hosted within chert which – while typically lower grade. than breccia-hosted mineralisation – is amenable to heap-leach extraction.