Texas Canyon, Elko County, Nevada
Location, Status and Access
The Texas Canyon Property (“Texas Canyon” or the “Property”) lies in the eastern Knoll Mountains in the northeastern part of Elko County, about 70 kilometers northeast of Wells, Nevada. The Property is 100% owned by Peloton with no royalty outstanding, and consists of 44 unpatented claims, about 909 acres. Easy access from Wells via Highway 93 and the Thousand Springs and Rock Springs Roads. Texas Canyon is a uranium, molybedenum, gold exploration prospect, and has recently been shown to be prospective for lithium with hectorite and illitic clays having been identified on the property. Texas Canyon is now also part of the Northern Nevada Lithium Project.
Recent Activity & Property History
The Property is currently surrounded with claims held by Surge Battery Metals (“Surge”) and Cat Strategic Metals (“Cat). Surge holds claims immediately to the west and south of the Property and has recently made a significant lithium discovery west of the Property (commencing about 400 metres west). Cat holds claims immediately to the east and north of the Property and is actively exploring for Porphyry-Diatreme style Cu-Au-Ag mineralization as well as lithium.
The Property hosted the historic Prince Mine which extracted high grade Uranium (U3O8) in the 1950’s from a 300 foot adit into a uraniferous breccia pipe on the Property. Historical records (Redfern 1977) state average mine grades of 1% Uranium with samples running as high as 7% Uranium. Peloton sampling has returned up to 1% Uranium, as well as up to 1660 ppm Molybdenum and up to 1280 ppb Gold.
In late 2022, Surge Battery Metals (“Surge”) announced the discovery of high grade lithium on claims immediately adjacent and tied onto Texas Canyon. The lithium on the Surge property is stated to be contained in silty, weakly calcareous, claystone and within seams of blue-grey clay, which occurs at Texas Canyon, but has never been assayed for lithium. Surge has reported multiple drill intersections of between 1000 ppm and 5000 ppm lithium, with thicknesses of between 10 and 120 feet, and a strike length of 5,315 feet. Surge has stated that a follow-on drill program is planned for 2023.
Texas Canyon hosts several hydrothermal breccia bodies along the margin of a graben/caldera structure. The adjacent lithium mineralization, and the Property’s uranium mineralization are likely cogenetic within the margin of the caldera.
Geology and Mineralization
Texas Canyon is centered on a broad zone of structurally controlled hydrothermal alteration, including decalcification and silica replacement of the limestone, localized along numerous northeast-striking high-angle veins and in bodies of clast-supported polyphase hydrothermal breccia and adjacent hydrothermal replacement zones. Silicification is common to all areas of mineralization and occurs within strongly altered limestone and breccia that is younger than the high angle structures that it cuts.
Geologic mapping, rock-chip sampling, and a detailed surface radiometric survey shows that mineralization is related to subvertical bodies of hydrothermal breccia and alteration along synvolcanic graben/caldera related structures similar to known uranium-bearing diatremes in other areas.
Historic workings occur within the mineralized areas and the largest of these workings is the Prince Mine. The Prince Mine was reportedly developed by prospectors in 1953 in order to determine the uranium potential of anomalous uranium surface occurrences they discovered. A subsequent Master’s thesis on the occurrence reported a 45° decline into the mineralization for a length of 300 feet and vertical depth of about 200 feet. A detailed radiometric survey identified a greater than 400 foot diameter roughly circular anomaly grading over 1% equivalent uranium at the same location. Surface samples taken within the anomaly show values of over 1 % uranium. Two historic channel samples from the decline assayed 0.354 and 0.094 % uranium and average over 0.2 % U3O8. Individual grab samples in the decline assayed over 7 % uranium.
The nearly circular outline of the anomaly suggests that the breccia body is nearly vertical and may be a breccia pipe (diatreme) hosted by the thick Pequop Formation limestone. The anomaly is centered on a greater than 2,500 foot long northeast structural zone and at least three other smaller but similarly mineralized anomalies occur along the length of the structure.
Work Done & Upcoming
Peloton has completed geologic mapping, rock-chip sampling, a detailed surface radiometric survey, and a regional airborne hyperspectral survey. The 2016 hyperspectral survey covered about 100 square kilometers and included Texas Canyon, much of the property now held by Surge and Cat, as well as Peloton’s Golden Trail Property 7 kilometers east. Re-processing of this data by SpecTIR, Reno, NV has identified hectorite and illite clays over an extensive area at Texas Canyon and also on Golden Trail.
The Company is planning a ground truthing program using a hand-held spectrometer, detailed mapping and sampling of the hectorite and illite clays. Follow-on ground geochemistry, geophysics, and drilling are also being planned.
Drill Permit and Bonding
The Property has cash bond in place with the Bureau of Land Management and a s021 drilling permit is being filed for renewal. Five drill pads under that permit largely surround the Prince Mine and the circular anomaly thought to be a vertical oriented breccia pipe.
Geologic Society of Nevada Property Abstract
The project is summarized in this abstract prepared for the Geologic Society of Nevada (GSN) Virtual Symposium 2020: Texas Canyon Project, Northeastern Elko County, Nevada, Richard C. Capps, Paula J. Noble, and Clark Jorgensen
