StrategX Elements Corp. announced that it is continuing exploration on its EA South project located on the East Arm of the Great Slave Lake approximately 200 km east of Yellowknife. The Company is focused on making discoveries in energy transition metals in a newly identified region of the East Arm located east of the Thor REE deposit and south of the Gahcho Kue diamond mine as shown on the infrastructure map that can be viewed here.

EA South comprising 88,000-hectare claim and permit block is situated on a major structural suture between two Archean-aged cratons as defined by the Great Slave Lake Shear Zone. This continental-scale shear zone is highly prospective for copper, gold, cobalt, and REE's. The exploration program will kick-start on EA South which will also serve as a base for advancing the 939 Cobalt project. The EA South project has attracted interest for its IOCG (Iron Oxide Copper Gold) deposit type potential.

These deposits can be very large producing hundreds of billions of dollars in gross metal value with the Olympic Dam Mine in Australia owned by BHP Minerals being the most well-known deposit of this type. Previous exploration on EA South focused on smaller base metal showings prior to the development and understanding of the IOCG deposit type model. The East Arm region has been ranked by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) as highly prospective in hosting these types of deposits (Potter, Corriveau and Kjarsgaard, 2019).

The EA South project is situated at the boundary of the Archean-aged Slave Craton (Slave Province) and Rae Craton (Churchill Province). The geological setting is comprised primarily of Proterozoic sedimentary and intrusive rocks that overly an Archean gneissic basement. At this boundary, the copper and gold mineralization appear to be associated to Proterozoic-aged intrusions (called Compton).

A schematic image showing a sectional view of this can be viewed here. The GSC have identified the Proterozoic-aged bedrock at the southern margin of the Slave Craton as having the potential to host an IOCG deposit and is one of the few areas in Canada that have not been previously explored for this deposit type.