Pacific Empire Minerals Corp (CVE:PEMC) (OTCQB:PEMSF) said it has staked an additional 5,253 hectares to significantly expand its flagship Jean Marie project in central British Columbia.
The copper explorer’s expansion effort covers prospective buried intrusions, contacts, and structures that were identified in regional magnetic survey data.
The polymetallic Jean Marie is a copper, gold, silver and molybdenum porphyry project located 50 kilometers west of Centerra Gold’s (TSE:CG) Mt Milligan copper-gold mine.
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In addition to the expanded stakes, a field crew has been mobilized and surficial geological mapping is underway, the company added.
Pacific Empire has retrieved approximately 300 boxes of historical drill core data from diamond drill programs conducted on the area in 1995 and 1997. As well as some from the early 1970's, these records are currently being catalogued and re-logged.
"Recovering and relogging the historical drill core is a critical first step for us this year," Thomas Hawkins, Pacific Empire's VP of exploration said in a statement. "We were very fortunate to be able to recover a significant amount of drill core from three previous drill campaigns and will use the information from re-logging to develop a detailed geologic model that will be invaluable as we define drill targets at Jean Marie."
Moving ahead, there are plans to conduct several surveys in July, including airborne magnetic, radiometric and LIDAR. The company will also perform soil sampling and detailed geological mapping in the same month.
Quaternary geology expert Derek Turner, has been hired by Pacific Empire to map the surficial geology of the Jean Marie area using historical survey data, modern topographical data and aerial imagery.
Once complete, the revised surface geology map will be used to reinterpret near-surface geochemical and geophysical data. From there, an integrated exploration model for the Jean Marie project will be developed guiding future diamond drilling.
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