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Project Overview: Kaizen’s Aspen Grove Project

The Aspen Grove Project is 60% owned by Kaizen Discovery [TSX-V:KZD] with 40% owned by Itochu  Corp. The project is 40 kilometers north of the town of Princeton in British Columbia, Canada and is hosted in the Upper Triassic-Early Jurassic (210-190 Million year old) Nicola Group.  The property itself covers numerous mineralized zones which have are interpreted to be either Volcanic Massive Sulphide, or part of the Porphyry Copper to Epithermal deposit continuum.

Exploration History

Examining a 19th Century Copper Prospect - Aspect Grove
Examining a 19th Century Copper Prospect – Aspect Grove

The Aspen Grove copper camp began producing in the late 19th century following the discovery and development of the mines of Copper Mountain to the south. During those early days the miners hand blasted and trenched their way through small showings of high grade copper. After the initial rush in faded in the early 20th century the area was ignored until the big wave of porphyry exploration began in the 1960’s following the discovery and development of the Highland Valley deposits to the west. Since then the property has seen succeeding waves of exploration with discoveries of the Ketchan alkalic porphyry’s, the Coke copper showing and the Par copper-silver skarn.

Geology and Mineralization

The Nicola belt is the defining group of rocks of the Quesnellia, an ancient volcanic micro-continent (similar to modern day Japan). In the region where Kaizen has their property the rocks were mapped in detail during the 1970’s by the British Columbia Geological Survey (Preto 1979) and divided into 3 distinct north-south trending belts based on rock type and divided by large faults. The westernmost belt is composed of volcanic rocks with minor limestones, the central composed of more iron-rich magmatism (andesites and basalts) and the eastern belt is composed of submarine volcanics and associated sediments. These are all cut by intrusions of diorite and syenite.

Prior to the work by Kaizen mineralization was thought to be either Skarn mineralization (Par) and alkalic porphyry copper (Ketchan, Thalia) or volcanic hosted Copper (Rum, Zig). Intensive exploration had occurred over 40 years ago and since then most exploration had been sporadic, and superficial. The re-mapping of the Par prospect by West Cirque Minerals (now merged with Kaizen) suggested that the Par was actually not a skarn but part of a large zone of porphyry associated mineralization. Compounding this was the realization that many of the drill core left on the site had never been assayed despite visible mineralization.

Kaizen Exploration – Property work

Map of the Aspen Grove Property
Map of the Aspen Grove Property

Once acquired, geologic mapping and airborne geophysical surveys of the property helped target the follow up detailed mapping of the Par prospect. On December 10th 2014 Kaizen releases the initial results of a four hole drill test of the project, the first in 50 years.  They included 28 m of 0.110% Copper 0.503% Zinc 0.027 g/t Gold 2.7 g/t Silver and 16m of 0.313% Copper 0.010% Zinc 0.097 g/t Gold and 1.6 g/t Silver in wider mineralized intersections. The mineralization is hosted in advanced argillic – phyllic/sericitic alteration which is highly suggestive of being up above or just to side of a large porphyry copper. Another intercept was in an altered –mineralized breccia which suggests the same thing. These holes were preliminary and widely spaced, They all intercepted mineralization and they all intercepted alteration.

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