Figure 11: Area discussed in the 1925 geological survey report

In 1925 prospecting relied heavily on boots on the ground exploration, often resulting in very detailed surface mapping. Surprisingly, their level of understanding of the geology was extensive despite the lack of technology. Many inferences were made based off of observations which ultimately laid the ground work for the exploration work carried out in the 1970’s and even for some of todays active mining operations in the area. Historical records give great insights and some of the observations around geology, mineralization and historical workings are important sets of data used in assessing the potential of under-explored regions. In this section the reader will find key observations from the report that highlight the potential of the Hot Breccia Property.

The following are key observations pulled from the 1925 USGS report

Highlights and Geological Observations from the 1925 USGS Report

According to the report, “Rocks of Cretaceous age crop out over more than two-thirds of the Christmas area. Considerable quantities of other rocks are found only along the northern border and in the southeast corner. The Cretaceous rocks include all the somewhat metamorphosed volcanic rocks and the sedimentary beds associated with them and can easily be distinguished from the Tertiary lava and tuff by their less fresh appearance.

There is doubtless much variation in the succession of beds in different places, and in the Christmas area no place was found where a satisfactory section could be measured. The thickness is certainly over 1,000 feet, and the maximum may be as much as twice that. It may be roughly estimated that two-thirds of the total thickness is of volcanic origin and the remainder of sedimentary origin. Probably in some localities the proportion of sedimentary beds is much less than this. The irregular distribution of sedimentary beds, the irregularity and indistinctness of stratification in the volcanic rocks, and the numerous faults make accurate estimates impossible.” (See figure 10)

(Cretaceous Stratified Rocks, pg. 11 – Ore Deposits of The Saddle Mountain and Banner Mining Districts)

“Tornado limestone rises from under the Cretaceous rocks in the northeast, southeast, and southwest corners of the area. The limestone seems to have been folded concomitantly with the Cretaceous rocks and probably underlies them throughout. The fact that the beds of the two formations lie so nearly parallel to each other in most localities, where the contact is exposed, both in the Christmas area and the region east of it, would seem to indicate that there had been little structural disturbance of the Tornado limestone before the Cretaceous strata were laid down. However, there appears to be an angular unconformity in the southeast corner of the area, and Campbell 28′ reports one in Reed Basin, so that there must have been some disturbance of the limestone before Upper Cretaceous time. In view of the structural history of the region in which the Christmas area, is situated and the apparent slight extent of the angular unconformities, it is probable that the movements prior to Upper Cretaceous time consisted largely of faulting.”

“The Cretaceous rocks are broken by normal faults. The longest zone of faulting that has been mapped is the one which has been called the Christmas fault at the mine of that name. This fault starts in the Ray quadrangle northwest of the Christmas mine and bounds the block of Tornado limestone containing the ore bodies of the mine on the northeast. What appears to be a continuation of the same zone of fracturing can be traced by means of limestone blocks southeastward into the Winkelman quadrangle.”

“At Christmas, the relative downthrow is on the east side, but farther south it appears to be reversed. Faulting was not traced continuously in the areas between the blocks of limestone, because of the absence of distinctive beds by means of which displacement could be detected, but it is thought probable that there is an essentially continuous zone of faulting. If so, the zone has a minimum length of about 7.5 miles.”

(Structure, pg.21-22 – Ore Deposits of The Saddle Mountain and Banner Mining Districts)

“The same line of faults probably continues southeastward across the Christmas area, and the depressions now occupied by Rock Creek and the stretch of Gila River mentioned have resulted primarily from it. The Tertiary beds underlying The Tablelands were not shattered into such small blocks as those farther north. In the portion of The Tablelands included in the Christmas area there is evidence of nothing more than minor dislocations. The rocks have however, been tilted a few degrees from the horizontal by a series of successive earth movements, as is proved by the angular unconformities between the rocks of different types.” (See Figure 10)

(Structure, pg.23 – Ore Deposits of The Saddle Mountain and Banner Mining Districts)

“A large part of the ore deposits of the Saddle Mountain and Banner districts were known and intermittently worked since the 1870’s, but little ore was shipped before the beginning of the turn of the century. None of the mines were ever developed sufficiently to attain steady and profitable production for more than a few years at a time. Ore of good grade had been found in numerous places, however, and in some of the deposits there may be large quantities of ore of commercial grade still unmined. From available estimates of the production of the mines and prospects visited it appears that over 550,000 tons of copper ore, about 6,500 tons of lead-silver ore, and a little zinc ore have been shipped from them. Gold ore of a total value of some tens of thousands of dollars and Vanadium ore was mined in a few places, but very little may have been shipped. Except for some small pockets of high-grade gold ore, the ores of the several metals mined have been of moderate tenor. Most of the copper ore contains from 2 to 4 per cent of copper, but there are small bodies of notably higher grade.”

(Historical Production, pg. 29 – Ore Deposits of the Saddle Mountain and Banner Districts)

“All the deposits in the Saddle Mountain and Banner districts were formed by replacement, rather than by the filling of open spaces, all lie near dikes or similar masses of quartz-mica, diorite, and nearly all are known to contain typical contact metamorphic silicate minerals. The evidence seems clear that most of the deposits on the properties mentioned above were formed by emanations that had their source in the quartz-mica diorite magma and that interacted with susceptible parts of the rocks in contact with the intrusions, forming replacement masses, parts of which contain sufficient quantities of metallic minerals to constitute ore. The diorite near the deposits is itself altered, and apparently a part of the mineralizing emanations welled up through it from the magma until they encountered conditions favorable for spreading out into the inclosing rocks. The alteration in the diorite consists in sericitization and the introduction of pyrite and quartz.”

(Contact-Metamorphic Deposits pg. 34 – Ore Deposits of the Saddle Mountain and Banner Districts)

In the Pyritic Gold Deposits portion of the report, it describes mineralization on the Reider, Hoosier and pools mine as being magnetite and specularite prominent in the ore in limestone. It goes on to say, “Some of the oxidized parts of the zones carry larger proportions of gold, and high assays have been obtained on samples of such ore. There is sufficient copper in some of the ore to be of commercial value, assays as high as 10 per cent of copper being reported. These mineralized bodies have been formed principally by metasomatic alteration of the rocks along paths opened by shearing. The replacement of the rocks was accompanied by the filling of crevices by quartz and minor amounts of other minerals.”

“Oxidation is irregular and in most places does not extend very deep. On the Hoosier group it goes down less than 50 feet. From the scanty information available it seems that it may reach greater depths on the Reider & Bailey group and at the Two Queens mine. In most of the outcrops, oxidation has been thorough and the sulphide minerals are completely destroyed. Gold has been concentrated in favorable parts of the oxidized ore bodies, probably in the main by the leaching out of more soluble constituents. Much of the oxidized material is stained with copper.”

(Pyritic Gold Deposits, pg.33 – Ore Deposits of The Saddle Mountain and Banner Mining Districts)

“The ore deposits of the two districts have so many points of similarity that they may be confidently regarded as genetically related products of the same period of mineralization. Some are certainly and the others probably not older than the end of the Cretaceous, and all are of types that are generally regarded as genetically related to igneous rocks. The only igneous rocks known in either district whose character and age would permit their consideration in this connection are the quartz-mica diorite and quartz-hornblende diorite, both believed to be of early Tertiary age. Many of the ore deposits are intimately associated with quartz-mica diorite, and nearly all the known deposits have outcrops of this rock near by, whereas the quartz-hornblende diorite is not known to be associated with any of the ore deposits. Thus, the same magmatic source from which the quartz-mica diorite came also supplied the agents of mineralization. Although the mineralizing solutions presumably came for the most part from depths below anything yet exposed by erosion, they rose near and in part through masses of quartz-mica diorite which are exposed, and ore bodies are therefore to be expected only in the vicinity of such masses.

At the Christmas mine the bottom of the No. 3 shaft is less than 200 feet above the lower limit at which valuable ore bodies are to be expected, but on the downthrown side of the Christmas fault limestone lithologically favorable to the production of ore bodies extends to much greater depths and has not yet been explored.”

(Generalizations and inferences, pg. 39 – Ore Deposits of The Saddle Mountain and Banner Mining Districts)

Summary of observations

So, what does this all mean? In summary, all the signs for the potential of an ore body being at depth on the Hot Breccia Property are present and noted in the report. Mineral rich outcrops are abundant and consistent with the early understanding of the regional geology and there is evidence that ties into the company’s belief that the Hot Breccia is in a Graben (a depressed segment of the crust bounded on at least two sides by faults). Not unlike Resolution, which is also in a Graben, only volcanic sediments and conglomerate are much thicker, thus the mineral deposit is much deeper than the identified target at Hot Breccia.

Maybe the most important note in the report as it relates to the Hot Breccia property was the suspicion of an ore body beneath the Reider Mine. Even back in 1925 the idea of a deep seated porphyry that was interconnected to the adjacent Christmas mine was a consideration.

Its also worth noting that prior to 1918 Copper porphyry’s were not distinguished, they were simply referred to as “disseminated copper ores” with most of the attention focused on the oxidization and enrichment of the primary sulfide mineralization. Although their spatial relationship with intermediate to felsic porphyritic intrusions had been recognized very early, the significance of a genetic relationship remained unclear. In fact, It was not until 1950 when A. M. Bateman (1950) assigned porphyry coppers to a genetic category in “Economic Mineral Deposits” and after many years of research on several aspects of these hydrothermal systems, a conceptual model for porphyry copper systems was published by J. David Lowell and John Guilbert in 1970 (Lowell and Guilbert, 1970).

Exploration History – 1925 to Present day

Between 1925 and 1980 most of the efforts in the region of the Saddle Mountain and Banner Mining districts were focused on the Christmas Mine and more broadly the Ray Mine and the Miami-Globe districts. Phelps Dodge did a considerable amount of exploration at the Christmas mine but never ventured too far south in what is todays Hot Breccia Property. However, two holes were reportedly drilled (about 1,800 feet east of HB) by Phelps Dodge which indicated mineralization that assayed .71% Cu on a 50 foot bulk assay interval and the other hole was drilled to a depth of 1,270 feet and contained variably mineralized skarn with several intercepts over 1% copper with a high of 3.16%.

It wasn’t until the early 1970’s that the first real modern exploration of the Hot Breccia property was executed on a joint venture between Conoco Inc and Bear Creek Mining Company (a Subsidiary of Kennecott). The objective of the drill program was to find concealed polymetallic skarn mineralization in an area 3.5 miles south of the Christmas Mine dubbed O’Carrell Canyon which is The Hot Breccia.

After an extensive ground mapping and prospecting campaign, the two companies drilled a number of holes between 1972 and 1981 to test the skarn altered Paleozoic limestones. Known highlights from the drill campaigns are as follows, although it should be noted that not all assays from this era of drilling are known:

D.H. OC-1 – 2,100’ -2,177’ – 0.54% Cu, 0.02% Zn, 0.03 Oz/T Au

D.H OCC-7 – 2,900’- 2,960’ – 1.40% Cu, 4.65% Zn, .005 Oz/T Au

D.H 0CC-8 – 2,350’ – 2,365’ – 1.73% Cu, .11% Zn, .047 Oz/T Au

                      2,350’ – 2,365’ – 1.40% Cu, .88% Zn, tr Au

Figure 12: Bear Creek Mining and Phelps Dodge drill hole locations

Figure 13: Bear Creek Mining drill table

*The source for the drill hole data above is Keating, L. DSc, CPG (2021): “The HotBx Claims, Winkelman, Pinal County, Arizona”. Data package prepared for Infinitum Copper Corp. by Walnut Mines LLC.

Using this data, Bear Creek Mining Company published a 6 page report in 1974. Interestingly, many of the observations made in the 1925 USGS report start to make some sense. Given that in the 1920’s data was mostly gathered at surface and through good old fashioned prospecting and mapping, this would mark the first real insights into the underlying geology at Hot Breccia project.

The following are key observations pulled from the 1974 Bear Creek Mining report
on the O’Carroll Canyon Mining Claims (Now Hot Breccia)

Highlights and Observations from the 1974 Bear Creek Report

Geology

“The O’Carroll Canyon claims (Hot Breccia) occur within a large body of Cretaceous volcanics that along with underlying older rocks, have been extensively intruded by northeast trending dikes and stock-like bodies of Laramide age. A thin unit of Cretaceous sediments, the Pinkard formation, occurs at the base of the volcanic section and separates it from as underlying thick sequence of limestone and quartzite ranging from Cambrian to Pennsylvanian in age. Late Precambrian sedimentary rocks are inferred to underlie these Paleozoic rocks.”

Paleozoic Rocks

“Paleozoic rocks within the claim area consist of basal Cambrian quartzite sequence overlain by approximately 1,300 feet of predominantly carbonate rocks of Devonian, Missisipian and Pennsylvanian age. In the portions of the claim block explored to date, mineralization is best developed in the basal Devonian Martin Formation as it is in the nearby Christmas Mine.”

Intrusive Rocks

“Intrusive rocks in the project area occur in a northeast trending, near vertical dike swarm with associated sills and stock-like masses. This swarm can be traced for several miles both northeast and southwest of the project area. The oldest intrusive rock type and the most significant in terms of volume is microdorite.”

“No mineralization is believed to be associated with the microdite.”

“Following the microdite intrusion, a series of pophyritic dikes ranging in composition from diorite to quartz monzonite were intruded.”

“The majority of the mineralization observed appears to have formed near the end of this intrusive sequence, possibly associated with the intrusion of a concealed stock, but predates the final intrusion of a distinctive quartz monzonite porphyry phase which locally xenoliths of both mineralized quartz monzonite and skarn. These mineralized xenoliths occurring in surface outcrop far above the actual site of mineralization were the impetus for the initial exploration in this area.”

Breccia Dikes

“The greatest concentration of breccia occurs in the vicinity of drill holes OC-1, OCC-7 and OCC-8, where the best mineralization has been encountered.”

Summary of Observations of the Bear Creek Report from 1972

As this was the first account of drilling on the property, it gave great insights into the geology of the immediate area and more so supported some of the inferences made in the 1925 USGS report. Both reports note the potential of a mineralized source at depth at Hot Breccia and the data falls inline with some of the findings by Prismo in more recent exploration efforts.

Prismo Metals Exploration

Prismo Metals acquired an Option to earn a 75% interest in the Hot Breccia Project in early 2023. The project consists of 227 mining concessions within the Saddle Mountain and Banner Mining district. Favourably positioned just 4 kilometers from the Christmas mine that recorded production of about 481.6 Million lbs of copper from 20.2 M tons at an average grade of 1.2% Cu plus significant gold and silver by products.

Not long after acquiring the project and doing an in depth review of the available data, Prismo initiated a ZTEM Survey and a small sampling program on the property.

On July 11^th,2023 Prismo announced the first assay results.  When combined with historic assays by the property vendor it highlighted not only copper mineralization in the area of the surface exposures of the namesake polylithic breccia, but also gold values with some copper associated with gossanous shear zones throughout the property that are commonly located at the contacts of a dike swarm cutting older rocks. The presence of gold in the mineralizing system could play an important role for future development of the project as the drilling gets under way.

Figure 14: Copper (left) and Gold (right) plotted on preliminary LiDAR interpretation with small mines and prospects and historic drill holes. The inset shows the location of the figure in the land package.

Table 2: Highlight assays for samples from Hot Breccia

In February of 2024, the company released the results of the ZTEM survey and it identified a very large conductive body at depth below the surface exposure of a large dike swarm. The footprint of the ZTEM anomaly is around the same size as that of the high-grade Resolution deposit 40km to the north (See Figure 15). Upon further review it was also discovered that 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 and therefore no historic drilling targeted this newly identified conductive zone.

Figure 15: 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.

Figure 16: 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.

With this new information in hand, Prismo sent in a team to do some additional sampling and started the permitting process for a 5000 meter drill campaign that will twin or deepen one or more of the historic holes to reach the ZTEM anomaly and additionally to target shallow gold mineralization.

The next round of results from sampling came on March 26^th, 2024. These results included a fragment of mineralized magnetite skarn encased within a quartz diorite porphyry that assayed 5.69% copper, 0.24 g/t gold and 32.8 g/t silver. This sample came from the Hot Breccia Showing directly above the ZTEM survey along a clearly defined swam of dikes that run down into the valley and line up with the Artisanal Reider mine. When cross referenced with historical drilling data in the area, it was also discovered that they had intersected similarly mineralized magnetite skarn at depth, indicating that extensive porphyry-related copper mineralization occurs at depth in the system.

Figure 17: Copper (left) and Gold (right) for historic and Prismo samples plotted on drone orthophoto overlain on satellite image with quartz diorite dike swarm, small mines and prospects and historic drill holes. Hot Breccia land boundary shown in yellow. The inset in the upper left shows the location of the figure in the land package.

Table 1. Assays for samples taken in February from Hot Breccia

Following the results, the company opted to engage AI company, ExploreTech to apply, their Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Optimized drill planning solution they call xFlare. 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.

On July 12^th, Prismo announced that permits were received from the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM“) for ten drill pads. The Company has established a budget of $3.0 million to complete the proposed five drill hole, 5,000 metre program. Taking an aggressive approach, each drill hole is intended to drill through the entire Paleozoic carbonate stratigraphy and the company anticipates 1,000 metres per drill hole although the exploration team will take advantage of the geological information provided by each drill hole to determine if any holes require extended drilling.

This will mark the first time in five decades that exploration has been executed on this land package. It will very quickly provide critical information that will help in vectoring in on what could be a very significant discovery in one of the most prolific copper districts on the planet.

Updates will be applied as developments occur on the project

Conclusion

Mineral exploration is complex and often requires years of data collection and analysis before a proper understanding of the geology and mineralizing controls are clear. Until more recently companies have been forced to rely solely on data from past exploration efforts. However, with the emergence of new technologies, explorers today are able to validate the data of previous generations and use it to generate new targets. With near surface discoveries becoming increasingly rare, we are looking deeper than ever before and using new tools like ZTEM and AI to derisk projects. With regards to Hot Breccia, the team not only has historical data suggesting a deep seeded mineralized system, but it’s now supported by modern day geophysics. More importantly though is that the project is in the heart of the Arizona Copper Belt where deep seated structures were bypassed in favour of the near surface open pit mining operations. Only the drill will reveal what is down there but the belief remains strong amongst management that there is a deposit just waiting to be discovered at the Hot Breccia Property.

Cautionary Notes

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.

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.sedar.com and readers are urged to review these materials, including the technical reports filed with respect to the Company’s mineral properties.

Disclosure

At the time of creation, Prismo Metals Inc. is a client of Insidexploration Analytics Inc.

Disclaimer

Project Reports are under the Issuers editorial control and published on Insidexploration. Information contained in Project Reports may change over time and may differ from other sources. For more information, please reference www.deltaresources.ca for Corporate, Technical Information and Project Specifications for the latest public disclosures.

Further;

The information herein is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell securities. While every effort is taken to ensure the accuracy of everything contained on this website, no warranty of same is expressed or implied. While we endeavour to keep the information up to date and correct, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the website or the information, products, services, or related graphics contained on the website for any purpose. While every caution has been taken to provide readers with most accurate information, we recommend that you consult a registered investment professional in your jurisdiction before undertaking any investment in any asset whatsoever.

All Issuer content within this space is considered authored by the Company as an extension of their digital presence. All copyrights are retained by each respective creator(s).

References

1925 USGS report on the Saddle Mountain and Banner Mining Districts

1974 report by Bear Creek Mining Company on exploration work at O’Carroll Canyon