Kay Mine Petrographic Study Confirms Potential For Conventional Metallurgical Processing

TORONTO - Arizona Metals Corp. reported results of a petrographic study of mineralization from the Kay Mine, with further interpretation by Arizona Metals’ advisor and VMS expert Dr. Mark Hannington. The study confirms the strong similarity of the Kay Mine mineralization to other bimodal mafic-felsic-hosted VMS deposits in the Jerome-Prescott area (located one hour north of the Kay Mine) and in other Proterozoic VMS belts (e.g., Flin Flon-Snow Lake, Skellefte). The sulfide assemblage is mineralogically simple and typical of polymetallic ores in this type of deposit. The observations in thin section show uniform granoblastic textures that should be amenable to conventional mineral processing.

The study noted that chalcopyrite is the primary copper mineral and sphalerite is the primary zinc mineral, which occur together with arsenopyrite, galena and copper sulphosalts. Importantly, the mineralization contains very low concentrations of galena (lead sulphide), comprising less than 1% of total sulphide content. Both copper-arsenic sulphosalts (tennantite) and copper-antimony sulphosalts (tetrahedrite) were observed in only trace amounts, the latter being a possible host for silver. The mineralization was found to be comparable to massive sulphides from Flin Flon and Snow Lake, and also similar to polymetallic ores at Lalor, LaRonde and Kidd Creek, and therefore is expected to have a similar metallurgy.

The abundance of carbonate in mineralized samples (up to 65% modal abundance), might positively impact metallurgical performance, including the hardness of the material and the acid neutralizing potential of the waste rock and tails. These aspects need to be tested further.

Marc Pais, CEO, said, “This petrographic study further confirms the results of a metallurgical review of the Kay Mine Project, completed by SRK and ProcessIQ in November, 2020. The Kay Mine mineralization is simple and typical of neighboring past-producing VMS deposits, as well as to deposits currently in operation around the world. Demonstrating that the deposit is amenable to conventional metallurgical processing is an important de-risking step in advancing towards production. We recently announced an increase of the Kay Mine Phase 2 drill program from 25,000m to 75,000m, and will be conducting batch flotation testing of core as we drill, at the labs of SGS Canada Inc.”