Independent consulting geologist Dr Peter Megaw, fresh from a site visit to Domestic Metals Corp (TSX-V:DMCU, OTCQB:DMCUF, FRA:03E0)'s Smart Creek project near Philipsburg, Montana, tells Proactive's Stephen Gunnion that the project's western Sunrise area is a high-potential target for an undiscovered gold-tungsten skarn. Historic placer mining has recovered gold and tungsten in the area, but the bedrock source has never been found, and Megaw believes a skarn deposit upstream is the likely explanation.
He explained why the Philipsburg region is so richly endowed with copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc, pointing to the nearby Butte district - home to one of the world's largest copper deposits and at least two major porphyry centres - as evidence the area sits in genuine "elephant country." Porphyry copper systems, he noted, form in regional clusters, and Butte isn't alone.
Megaw outlined how porphyry, skarn and carbonate replacement deposit (CRD) systems form a single continuum. Where reactive limestone and dolomite host rocks are present, as at Smart Creek, the same mineralising fluids behind Butte's giant vein system can instead produce skarns and CRDs - and Smart Creek has both the right ingredients and the right host rocks.
On revisiting old mining districts, Megaw said the key is spotting hallmarks of large, long-lived systems and using modern geophysics to find mineralisation earlier miners missed. At Smart Creek, he said those signs are present: an active copper zone already under exploration, and the Sunrise gold-tungsten target representing a separate, distinct opportunity.
Read Proactive's Editorial Policy here.
#DomesticMetalsCorp #DMCO #SmartCreek #Montana #copper #gold #tungsten #miningexploration #juniorminers #resourceinvesting