Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 4, 2024) - Prismo Metals Inc. (CSE: PRIZ) (OTCQB: PMOMF) ("Prismo" or the "Company") is pleased to announce engaging Exploration Technologies Inc. (ExploreTech) from San Diego, California to apply xFlare, their Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Optimized drill planning solution, to its Hot Breccia Project where a number of features suggests well mineralized Arizona-style Copper Porphyry lies at depth.
The xFlare AI approach is specifically designed to combine surface geology and drilling results with computationally intensive remodeling of existing geophysical datasets to optimize targeting of covered targets. The process quickly generates thousands of solutions that cluster on the best fits between the geological and geophysical data and then generates drillhole trajectories designed to cut those clusters most effectively.
Dr. Craig Gibson, President and CEO of Prismo Metals, commented: "The Hot Breccia Project should be an ideal place to apply xFlare. It lies in the world-famous Arizona copper belt, between several very well understood world-class copper mines including Morenci, Ray and Resolution. (Figure 1) Hot Breccia shows many features in common with these neighboring systems, most prominently a swarm of porphyry dikes and series of breccia pipes containing numerous fragments of well copper-mineralized rocks mixed with fragments of volcanic and sedimentary derived from considerable depth. Prismo ran a ZTEM survey last year that identified a very large conductive anomaly directly beneath the breccia outcrops and expects xFlare's AI approach to zero in on where and at what depth to drill. The drill permitting process is well advanced."
Figure 1. Location of the Hot Breccia copper project
"Hot Breccia has all the right elements for significant porphyry copper and skarn mineralization, and we are thrilled to be partnering with Prismo to optimize their drilling," said Dr. Alex Miltenberger, ExploreTech's co-founder and CEO. "Prismo's ZTEM anomaly is very strong, and xFlare was designed precisely to refine these kinds of data to match what is known of the geology and the target model."
The ZTEM survey identified a large conductive body at depth below the surface exposure of a large dike swarm that hosts the namesake breccias. Anomalous copper and gold assays are locally present at the surface in this area (see press release of July 11, 2023), and high-grade copper and zinc assays are present above this anomaly in historic drill holes completed by major copper producers in the 1970's and early 1980's (see press release of January 29, 2023).
While all of the historic drill holes intersected hydrothermal alteration within the volcanic rocks that overlie the typically better mineralized Paleozoic carbonate rocks with increasing alteration intensity downwards, no historic drilling targeted this newly identified conductive zone identified in Prismo's ZTEM survey. The carbonate host units above the anomaly have several copper intercepts reported to exceed 1% copper and elevated zinc levels.
Figure 2. View of the subsurface looking northeasterly showing the conductive body from the ZTEM survey and cross sections of the Christmas deposit and the Hot Breccia area. Historic drill holes are shown with copper assays as disks within the red ellipse; the magenta color indicates > 1% Copper.
Figure 3. Plan view of the surface geology showing the hot breccia land boundary in black and the cross sections from Fig. 2. The surface projection of the conductive body shown in Fig. 2 is roughly outlined in red.
Assay results from historic drill holes are unverified as the core has been destroyed, but information has been gathered from memos, photos and drill logs that contain some, but not all, of the assay results and descriptions.
Qualified Person
Dr. Craig Gibson, PhD., CPG., a Qualified Person as defined by NI-43-01 regulations and president, CEO and a director of the Company, has reviewed and approved the technical disclosures in this news release.
About Hot Breccia
The Hot Breccia property consists of 1,420 hectares 227 contiguous mining claims located in the world class Arizona Copper Belt. The project lies about four kilometers from the historic Christmas mine which recorded production of about 481.6 million pounds of copper from 20.2 million tons at a grade of 1.2% Copper plus significant gold and silver (Sources: Arizona Geological Society Spring Field Trip Guide in 2014). Prismo has not been able to verify the Christmas production information and it is not necessarily indicative of the mineralization on the Hot Breccia property.
Prismo holds the option to earn up to a 75% interest in the project from Infinitum Copper Corp. ("Infinitum"), subject to a 2% NSR royalty to a private company, Walnut Mines LLC.
About ExploreTech
ExploreTech's AI approach to modeling of existing geophysics is specifically designed to augment surface-based geological work to locate anomalies beneath cover (see exploretech.ai for additional information). Their xFlare platform first combines geophysical simulation with AI to identify and locate where a geophysical anomaly actually lies. This is done by testing thousands of possible explanations (models) for anomalies measured at the surface and selecting only those that closely match the real-world geophysics. The selected models of the combined geology and geophysics tend to cluster around the most likely location of the anomaly. The program then evaluates the clusters in three dimensions to determine the optimal drilling trajectory to pierce as many of the target anomalies as possible. The entire process can be rerun as drill results for specific targets, or additional geophysical surveying, adds new information allowing improved vectoring to the best mineralized parts of a given ore system. This use of AI to reveal and reinforce target anomalies in existing geophysical datasets is a significant new exploration tool and has already been applied in several cases, including imaging a magnetic anomaly at Reyna Silver's Guigui Project.
About Prismo
Prismo (CSE: PRIZ) is mining exploration company focused on two precious metal projects in Mexico (Palos Verdes and Los Pavitos) and a copper project in Arizona (Hot Breccia).
This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements other than statements of historical fact, including without limitation, statements regarding the anticipated content, commencement and exploration program results, the ability to complete future financings, required permitting, exploration programs and drilling, and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct.
The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the state of the financial markets for the Company's equity securities, the state of the commodity markets generally, variations in the nature, the analytical results from surface trenching and sampling program, including diamond drilling programs, the results of IP surveying, the results of soil and till sampling program. the quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located, variations in the market price of any mineral products the Company may produce or plan to produce, the inability of the Company to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required, including CSE acceptance, for its planned activities, the inability of the Company to produce minerals from its properties successfully or profitably, to continue its projected growth, to raise the necessary capital or to be fully able to implement its business strategies, the potential impact of COVID-19 (coronavirus) on the Company's exploration program and on the Company's general business, operations and financial condition, and other risks and uncertainties. All of the Company's Canadian public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedarplus.ca and readers are urged to review these materials, including the technical reports filed with respect to the Company's mineral properties.
