New World Cobalt Ltd (ASX:NWC) is about to start its first drilling program at the Colson project within North America’s premier cobalt district, the Idaho Cobalt Belt.
The diamond drilling will target mineralisation at the under-explored historical Salmon Canyon copper‐cobalt deposit.
Access roads have been repaired and drill pads constructed with the first rig mobilised.
This rig is expected to be on site and operational in the coming days.
READ: New World Cobalt shares rise on identifying strong cobalt anomalies in Nevada
New World has arranged for a second rig to be mobilised to the site in early August.
This will expedite the planned 5,000 to 7,500-metre diamond core drilling program.
Samples from underground workings at Salmon Canyon have returned assays of up to 2. 5metres at 0.59% cobalt, 5.33% copper and 2.24 g/t gold, and 1.3 metres at 0.65 cobalt, 6.16% copper and 2.54 g/t gold.
Another sample returned 1.8 metres at 0.31% cobalt, 2.99% copper, 3.48 g/t gold and 27.7 g/t silver.
Anomaly is delineated
Recent exploration delineated a strong, coherent, 1.3-kilometre long coincident cobalt‐copper‐arsenic soil geochemistry anomaly centred on the Salmon Canyon deposit.
This was the first exploration undertaken at the project since 1980.
New World’s drilling will target this soil anomalism, which is interpreted to arise from strike extensions of the Salmon Canyon deposit.
Several additional soil anomalies have been delineated in proximity to this deposit and are interpreted to potentially arise from additional mineralisation, similar to that at the deposit.
Ground geophysical data is being acquired over these anomalies so the highest priority areas can be targeted initially in drilling programs.