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Nicola Mining Inc
Symbol NIM
Shares Issued 80,606,637
Close 2015-07-07 C$ 0.065
Market Cap C$ 5,239,431
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Nicola completes preliminary exploration at Thule

2015-07-07 20:54 ET - News Release

Mr. Peter Espig reports

NICOLA MINING INC. COMPLETES PRELIMINARY EXPLORATION PROGRAM THAT INCLUDES +0.9% CU SAMPLE ON ITS THULE COPPER PROJECT, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Nicola Mining Inc. has completed a preliminary (spring 2015) mineral exploration program on its Thule project, which covers an area of 8,272 hectares in the Nicola mining division, located 14 kilometres northwest of Merritt in Southern British Columbia.

A total of 48 rock samples was collected over the property from 14 known mineral tenures (Minfiles) located within the company's mineral tenure.

The rock samples consisted of grab samples from road-cut, outcrop, and historical trench and shaft dumps. Copper values ranged from trace to 9,080 parts per million copper. The highest value, 9,080 ppm copper sample (0.9 per cent copper), was collected from trench dump material located at the Titan Queen (092ISE034) historical showing. Surface copper mineralization above 2,000 ppm was also verified at the Marb (092ISE033), Eric (092ISE036) and the Marb 72 (092ISW037) mineral showings (Minfiles). Mineralization is primarily hosted: (1) as malachite-mineralization along fracture zones within quartz diorite and potasically altered volcanics, (2) in quartz veins with finely disseminated chalcopyrite within quartz diorite, and (3) within magnetite plus epidote skarn-altered limy tuffs with malachite plus/minus azurite plus/minus chalcopyrite mineralization.

The 2015 Thule exploration program consisted of five main objectives:

  1. Examine known historical porphyry and skarn mineral showings (Minfiles);
  2. Follow up on geophysical trends defined in the 2012 helicopter aeromagnetic gradient and spectrometer survey, as highlighted on the company's website;
  3. Examine road-cut and outcrop exposure along new logging roads;
  4. Photo catalogue and relog diamond drill core from Christopher James Gold Corp.'s 2005 drilling program on the Craigmont property;
  5. To compile and digitize historical geochemical, geophysical, drilling and geological data.

Nicola Mining has nine banker boxes worth of hard-copy data, which includes historical air photos, internal memos, geological maps, more than 1,000 underground drill logs, 100 surface drill logs and over 100,000 line metres of ground geophysical data. Data and maps from over 100 B.C. assessment reports and property files available electronically are also being included in the electronic data compilation.

Future exploration work will consist of: (1) building upon the initial database compilation with the goal of generating a geological and mineralogical block model for the Craigmont mine site area and (2) further ground exploration work proximal to the Marb 72 and WP showings, with the goal of identifying additional porphyry-style targets.

Property geology

An east-northeast-trending, steeply dipping, volcanic pile of Upper Triassic Nicola group rocks, bound to the north by the early Jurassic-late Triassic Guichon Creek batholith and unconformably overlain by the Middle and Upper Cretaceous Spences Bridge group, underlies the Thule property. Thick gravel overburden caps most of the property.

The Thule property hosts at least two types of mineralization described as copper-iron skarn and copper porphyry. Carbonate-rich, silicate-rich or intrusive rocks along the southern flanks of the Guichon batholith host the two types of mineralization.

Several major faults cut through the property, including the north-trending Lornex fault on the west, responsible for controlling large-tonnage porphyry copper deposits to the north, including Valley, Lornex, Bethlehem and Highmont. Faults controlling mineralization around the mine include the northwest-trending Embayment faults, the Mine East fault and the East-West fault.

Property history

The property covers a large area along the southern extents of the Guichon batholith, where many of the copper prospects on the property have been intermittently explored since as early as the 1930s. The most important discovery to date has been the past-producing Craigmont copper-iron mine located in the central part of the claim holdings.

Craigmont was operated as an open-pit mine by Craigmont Mines Ltd. from 1961 to 1967 and as an underground sublevel block cave mine from 1967 to 1982. Over its operating life, the mine produced 34 million metric tonnes of ore averaging 1.28 per cent copper from body No. 1 and body No. 2. A policy decision was made by the board of Craigmont to shut the mine down in 1982, at a time when the copper price was approximately 60 cents per pound.

From 1982 to 1992, Craigmont shipped up to 60,000 tonnes of clean metallurgical magnetite per year from its stockpile to coal producers in North America for use in the coal flotation process. After 1992, Craigmont continued to produce a limited amount of products for the coal industry from reworked iron fines in the tailings pond.

On March 3, 2011, Nicola Mining (formerly Huldra Silver Inc.) agreed to buy all of the outstanding shares of Craigmont Holdings Ltd. in consideration for certain cash and share payments. Nicola Mining and the previous owners of the property are the shareholders of Thule property, which is managed by Nicola Mining.

Historical estimates

There are currently no mineral resource estimates on the Thule property. Historical resource calculations are recorded in internal memos and geological reports for placer development. An internal memo written by J.F. Bristow on Oct. 30, 1985, to Craigmont Mines reported that a zone known as body No. 3 contains a historical estimate of 1.29 million tons of copper grading 1.53 per cent (i). The estimate assumes a 0.7-per-cent cut-off and a 20-foot mining width between drill sections 6565E and 8015E. The material in body No. 3 contains mineralization primarily in silicate-rich rocks.

Additionally, Mr. Bristow reported in an internal memo on July 22, 1985, to Craigmont Mines a rough calculation of 27,754,000 tonnes of copper grading 1.79 per cent copper left behind in the sublevel cave (i). The material is from the previously mined-out No. 1 body and No. 2 body.

The company is currently in the process of inputting historical drill holes and underground workings to assess the historical estimate of body No. 3.

(i)These are historical resource estimates that do not comply with the current Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum definition standards on mineral resources and mineral reserves as required by NI 43-101. A qualified person has not done sufficient work to upgrade or classify these historical resources estimates to current mineral resources prepared in accordance with NI 43-101. The issuer is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources, and the historical estimate should not be relied on.

Quality assurance and quality control

Samples were described and sampled bagged, tagged, photographed, catalogued, sealed and sent to Activation Laboratories Ltd. in Kamloops (an ISO 17025-certified lab, which is independent of the company) for analysis using aqua regia partial extraction and ICP analysis for 24 elements with fire assay for gold. Due to the preliminary nature of the program, the company relied on internal laboratory standards, blanks and duplicates. A library sample from each sample location site was collected and is currently stored at the Merritt mill facility.

The foregoing geological disclosure has been reviewed and verified by Brian May, PGeo, a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 (standards of disclosure for mineral projects).

Stock option grants

The company also announces that it will grant investor relations and consulting firms an aggregate of 530,000 options, each exercisable into one common share of the company at a price of six cents per share until June 19, 2019, pursuant to the conditions of the company's stock option plan.

Peter Espig, chief executive officer, commented: "Nicola Mining continues to explore the potential of Thule copper both internally and with third parties in order to better understand the asset and its potential. We are also excited about the company's momentum and will place greater investor relations emphasis and efforts on explaining the Nicola Mining story in the future."

We seek Safe Harbor.

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