Press Release Sept. 25, 23 Barksdale Resources Corp. is pleased to announce that it has commenced drilling at its Sunnyside copper-lead-zinc-silver exploration project in Arizona, with the first hole currently at approximately 765 meters depth. Additionally, the Company is happy to report that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied the Plaintiff’s motion for an injunction during the appeal process.
The Company’s Plan of Operations for the Sunnyside drilling program was recently approved by the United States Forest Service. This program will test our high-grade exploration targets, within a district scale mineral system, for up to seven years. The current Phase I drill program is focused on extending known carbonate replacement mineralization (“CRD”) from the eastern claim boundary west towards the Sunnyside copper-molybdenum-silver porphyry.
Highlights:
Drilling has commenced at the first target and a second drill is expected to arrive in October.
The first large-scale target is the Boundary CRD copper-zinc-lead-silver zone that was intersected in historic drilling from the 1980’s.
Hole SUN-001 is currently at 765 meters depth and will test for mineralized horizons within the Concha and Scherrer carbonate units occurring from an approximate depth of 1200 meters.
Rick Trotman, President and CEO of Barksdale states, “The drill is actively turning at Sunnyside. After many years of hard work on the permitting front, I’m truly excited to take the next step and start testing our targets. Sunnyside is part of a world-class mineral system and getting the first hole underway is a fantastic achievement. We look forward to providing additional updates as we advance the drilling program.”
The first hole from the planned ~16,000-meter drilling program is currently underway at the Boundary zone target, located between the eastern property boundary and the previously drilled Sunnyside copper-molybdenum-silver porphyry system (Figure 1). The Boundary zone is within a larger projected horizon of carbonate host rocks that extend through the northeastern portion of the Sunnyside property. This target was previously intersected by drilling in the 1980’s that encountered approximately 362 meters of highly altered carbonate rocks hosting over a dozen mineralized intervals of CRD mantos of massive sulfide mineralization. The Boundary zone target is roughly 1.1 kilometers long (NW-SE) by 700 meters wide (SW-NE), plunging shallowly (5-15 degrees) to the northwest and dipping to the northeast (20-40 degrees).
Legal Update
As previously announced on September 6, 2023, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona issued a ruling that denied the Plaintiff’s request for a preliminary injunction at Sunnyside, which would have prevented the Company from drilling until the final ruling regarding the United States Forest Service’s permit was issued by the Court. The Plaintiffs appealed that ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Ninth Circuit”), seeking an emergency injunction that would stop drilling until a ruling has been issued on the appeal. The Ninth Circuit denied the request for an emergency injunction. The Company expects the Ninth Circuit to issue a final ruling on the appeal in December 2023 or January 2024 and the broader lawsuit will continue moving forward over the next year (approximately).
Scientific and technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Lewis Teal, Senior Consultant to the Company and a ‘Qualified Person’ as defined under Canadian National Instrument 43-101.
Barksdale Resources Corp., a 2023 OTCQX BEST 50 Company, is a base metal exploration company headquartered in Vancouver, B.C., that is focused on the acquisition, exploration and advancement of highly prospective base metal projects in North America. Barksdale is currently advancing the Sunnyside copper-zinc-lead-silver and San Antonio copper projects, both of which are in the Patagonia mining district of southern Arizona, as well as the San Javier copper-gold project in central Sonora, Mexico. Click here to view additional photos and the entire press release.