Arizona Eagle Mining Corp. reported high-grade zinc-silver VMS mineralization from the final five holes of its Phase 1 drill program at the Eagle Project in Arizona’s historic McCabe district. The drilling extended known mineralization by about 50 metres, building on historical estimates of 880,000 ounces of gold.
Exploration at the historic McCabe gold-silver mining district in Arizona has advanced with new assay intercepts from Arizona Eagle Mining Corp. The company announced results from the final five holes of its Phase 1 drill program on the Eagle Project, targeting multiple northeasterly-striking, steeply-dipping sulphide-bearing quartz veins outside the area covered by the historical resource estimate of approximately 880,000 ounces of gold at 11.7 g/t at McCabe.
Phase 1 Drill Results and Strike Extensions at the McCabe District
The initial drill holes designed to test potential to the northeast intersected high-grade gold mineralization that remains open along strike. This activity extended the mineralized strike by about 50 metres beyond the approximate 750-metre strike length covered by the historical estimate. Holes Eagle-26-05 and Eagle-26-06, located approximately 200 metres and 250 metres northeast of the McCabe Mine respectively, intersected high-grade zinc-silver VMS type mineralization according to the company’s announcement.
These intervals align with three past-producing silver mines acquired by Arizona Eagle, situated roughly one kilometre northeast of the McCabe Mine. The intervals display similarities to the past-producing Iron King Mine, located approximately four kilometres on strike to the northeast. Historical records for the Iron King Mine indicate production from 1903 to 1969 totaling 5.7 million tons at grades of 2.6 g/t gold, 98 g/t silver, 4.9% zinc, 1.8% lead, and 0.1% copper, with mining reaching depths below 1,000 metres compared to the vertical depths of approximately 150 metres reported for the current VMS intervals.
“The recently concluded Phase 1 drill program has validated our belief that high-grade gold and silver mineralization remains open beyond the area covered by the Historical Estimate.”
Kevin Reid, Chief Executive Officer of Arizona Eagle
Assay Intercept Details and Geophysical Surveys
Drilling data released by the company details multiple intercepts across the program’s final holes. Hole Eagle-26-02 intersected 4.2 metres grading 5.73 g/t gold and 5.90 g/t silver from 402.6 to 406.8 metres, including a 2.6-metre interval grading 8.05 g/t gold and 7.73 g/t silver. Holes EAGLE-26-03 and EAGLE-26-04 tested the northeastern extension of the McCabe-Sooner mineralized system, encountering a sulphide-rich shear zone characterized by blebby and banded arsenopyrite, pyrite, sphalerite, galena, and tetrahedrite.
| Drill Hole ID | From (m) | To (m) | Length* (m) | Au (g/t) | Ag (g/t) | Zn (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eagle-26-01 | 355.7 | 356.9 | 1.2 | 2.73 | 3.28 | – |
| Eagle-26-02 | 402.6 | 406.8 | 4.2 | 5.73 | 5.90 | – |
| Eagle-26-05 | 206.7 | 218.5 | 11.8 | 0.17 | 9.17 | 1.7 |
| Eagle-26-06 | 223.1 | 224.0 | 0.9 | 0.79 | 8.15 | 17.1 |
Following these findings, the company is compiling results and commissioned a detailed SkyTem airborne geophysical survey to delineate mineralization types and refine targets ahead of a planned Phase 2 drill program.
Historical Context of Arizona Mining Landmarks
The region’s mining history extends far beyond modern district-scale exploration. Decades prior to these contemporary drill programs, prospectors and engineers targeted Arizona’s landscape for valuable mineral deposits under very different scientific assumptions. Most notably, Daniel Moreau Barringer staked claims on Arizona’s Meteor Crater in 1903, convinced that a massive iron-nickel meteorite lay buried beneath the crater floor. Operating under the belief that an ore body worth millions of tons of iron waited underground, Barringer drilled for 26 years against the official government consensus that the crater was volcanic.
By the late 1920s, a drill operated by Barringer’s Standard Iron Company reached a depth of 1,376 feet, where it ground into hard material amid increasing meteoric traces before jamming permanently. Shortly thereafter, astronomer Forest Ray Moulton calculated that an impactor striking at cosmic speeds of roughly 26,000 miles per hour would release multi-megaton energy, causing the iron mass to vaporize upon impact. Barringer received this report in November 1929 and died of a heart attack shortly afterward at age 69, having exhausted approximately $600,000 of personal and investor funds. Science later validated Barringer’s theory that an impactor formed the crater, even though the iron had vaporized rather than formed an underground vault.