Konnex Resources, Inc. is the Idaho registered operating company and is an 80% owned subsidiary of Phoenix Copper Limited (PXC) (AIM:PXC) (OTCQX:PXCLY), a private resource company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. ExGen Resources, Inc (TSX V:EXG) (OTC:BXXRF), holds a 20% interest in Konnex.
Konnex holds 100% of the mineral rights to the claims via lease agreements with Honolulu Copper Corp. (Honolulu Copper group) and Mackay, LLC (Mackay group), with the exception of two Honolulu Copper group claims, for which Konnex controls a 50% share of the mineral rights. The Horseshoe Claim Block consists of 54 unpatented claims acquired in 2017 and 2018. The Horseshoe claims are 100% owned by Konnex.
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Summary:
The Empire Mine Project is located within the Alder Creek Mining District of east-central Idaho, positioned east of the Idaho Batholith and north of the Snake River Basalt Plain. This district sits within the North American Cordilleran thrust belt at the northern edge of the Basin and Range structural province.
The Empire Project area overlies a north-trending contact zone between an Eocene granitic complex, including the Mackay Granite and Mackay Porphyry, and the Upper Mississippian age White Knob Limestone. This contact zone hosts a garnet-pyroxene-magnetite skarn developed in both the carbonate and intrusive rocks. The skarn is notably significant, serving as the host of the polymetallic copper mineralization characteristic of the Empire Mine. The intrusive contact is sharp and dips steeply eastward.
At the Empire Mine, both copper-oxide (carbonates, malachite and azurite) and sulphide (chalcopyrite/chalcocite) mineralization is developed to varying degrees within exoskarn in rafted limestone fragments and endoskarn in porphyry. The copper oxide mineralization occurs as veinlets, stockworks, and disseminated oxide/sulphides. The sulphides have similar characteristics, but also occur as massive lenses, both copper sulphides and magnetite, along skarn-hosted fault breccias. In both breccia types, the degree of mineralization appears to be a function of the amount of contained skarn fragments.
Mineralization at the Empire Mine is primarily representative of a polymetallic skarn deposit, however, epithermal veining has also been identified, both of which represent a continuum deposit style related to igneous intrusions. Porphyry copper deposits often occur adjacent to and below skarn deposits, and although no porphyry copper system has yet been identified at the Empire Mine Project, several characteristic high grade Pb/Zn + Ag veins occur distal to the skarn in the White Knob Limestone.
Several similar deposits occur in the near vicinity of the Empire Mine, including the White Knob Mine and Copper Basin Mine, located ¾ mi north and 10 miles southwest, respectively, of the Project area. The Copper Basin Mine hosts flat dipping beds of soft, black lime shale uniformly mineralized with a dissemination of pyrite and chalcopyrite (Mitchell, 1999). In the Mackay district, ore bodies have historically been mined along a north-south arc-shaped belt at least three miles long and 1,000 feet wide, with the Empire mine at the center of the belt where pipe-like copper-bearing ore bodies were mined. Lead-zinc bodies have been developed at various mines to the north and south. The distribution of the lead-zinc deposits on either side of the major copper deposits suggests zoning (Farwell and Full, 1944).
The metals observed at the Empire Mine Project indicate the intrusion of an intermediate I-type granite source. The skarn hosted in the White Knob limestone is referred to as a calcic exo-skarn as the metasomatic assemblage is external to the Eocene intrusive.
Both skarn and epithermal deposits are continuum of deposit styles related to igneous intrusions. Other related deposit types include porphyry copper deposits, which commonly occur adjacent to and below skarn deposits, as do iron-oxide-copper-gold deposits (IOCG). Vein-type copper-lead-zinc deposits are often found in the calcareous formations distal to the skarn mineralization. No porphyry copper or IOCG system has yet been detected at the Empire Mine Project.
Skarn Mineralization
Copper-oxide (carbonates, malachite, and azurite) and sulfide (chalcopyrite/chalcocite) mineralization occur to varying degrees within exoskarn in rafted limestone fragments and endoskarn in porphyry. The mineralization occurs as copper oxide veinlets and stockworks and disseminated oxides and sulfides. The sulfides have similar characteristics, but also occur as massive lenses (both copper sulfides and magnetite) along skarn-hosted fault breccias. The degree of mineralization in skarn-hosted fault breccias is a function of the amount of contained skarn fragments. Copper and iron were introduced into the skarn during the latter stages of the scarification processes (Chang, 2003). Brittle faulting/shearing and ductile deformation during the scarification process likely provided the conduits for mineralizing fluids. Magnetite breccias may represent the pathways providing access of mineralizing hydrothermal fluids into the then developing skarn.
At the northern end of the property, mineralized zones dip eastward between 45° and 90°, somewhat parallel to the limestone-porphyry contact (but cross-cutting the west-dipping limestone). At the southern end, in the vicinity of the AP Pit area, the dip of both exoskarn and mineralization ranges from 30° to 50° towards the east.
Iron Oxide Breccia Mineralization
The Empire Mine skarn is overprinted by a series of north-trending anastomosing faults which are represented by gossanous breccias, veins and stockworks up to several feet in width. Herein termed “FeOx breccias”, these structures consist of intensely clay-altered, chalky and brecciated wallrock (exoskarn, endoskarn and porphyry) cemented by siliceous limonite and goethite (sulfide derived iron-oxide). Brecciation clearly post-dates scarification. The breccias exhibit strong epithermal signatures, indicated by advanced argillic alteration (clay+pyrite+silica), and open-space textures. These FeOx breccias are goldbearing and represent a late stage, epithermal, gold-rich, hydrothermal regime overprinted upon the skarn. The copper in these epithermal structures may have been scavenged, in-part, from the pre-existing skarn.
The scale of the processes of skarn development and associated hydrothermal mineralization is characteristic of a large (2 mile long by 130-500 ft wide) skarn system flanking a poorly understood parent intrusive body measuring 1,150 ft in the north-south extent and some 820 to 1,640 ft in width (Maund, 2016). Previous exploration at the Empire Mine has primarily focused on a shallow copper oxide resource comprising a 1,300-ft section of the 2-mile length of the skarn body and has largely discounted or ignored supergene and sulfide Cu, Au, Ag, Zn, W mineralization.