Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation provided an update on the Willow porphyry copper project in the Yerington copper camp, southeast of Reno, Nevada. The Company drilled three holes totaling approximately 1,700 metres on Willow last year. All holes intersected the Luhr Hill granite porphyry, which is the host rock of the four known porphyry copper-molybdenum (Cu-Mo) deposits in the Yerington camp.

Two holes drilled on Willow by Abacus in 2018 also identified this porphyry granite rock, with one hole intersecting the Luhr Hill just before being lost. The identification of the Luhr Hill granite on Willow is significant, as all four known porphyry Cu-Mo deposits in the Yerington camp are hosted by this rock unit. Rocks of the Luhr Hill are also not known to exist at Yerington, without an associated Cu-Mo porphyry deposit.

This means that there is a very high likelihood of a Cu-Mo deposit being found on Willow, which would mark the first major discovery in the Yerington camp in over forty years. The Company analyses all drill holes for a large suite of geochemical elements, in an effort to vector into a copper bearing deposit. This work is complicated by the fact that the originally upright porphyry system is now lying on its side, with many of its features buried by later volcanics.

The geochemical results are still being processed by the lab, due to volume and covid related delays, but results are expected sometime in March, and they will be released once interpreted. Copper porphyry-molybdenum deposits at Yerington occur at the contact of the Luhr Hill granite porphyry and surrounding volcanic rocks, or else close to the granite but further into the volcanic package. Because the target at Willow is covered by later volcanism, prospecting by drill is the only effective means of trying to locate a porphyry center, and this often takes several drill campaigns to achieve, with each successive campaign vectoring closer to a porphyry center.

Abacus completed geological, geochemical and geophysical work on Willow beginning in 2017 and then undertook a short core drilling program the following year. This drilling identified the Luhr Hill Granite on Willow with copper values in the 0.1% to 0.2% Cu range along with elevated Mo. This was a key new discovery, as there are no known instances of this granite in the camp without an associated porphyry.

The Molybdenum values are a particularly strong indicator that they are close to a porphyry copper center. Both drill programs were designed to test a very small portion of an extensive zone of intense silicic and advanced argillic alteration, marked by coincident geological, geochemical and geophysical signatures typical of a porphyry copper-molybdenum deposit. Porphyry copper systems are large in extent, and geochemistry collected from the 2018 drilling indicated that a likely porphyry center occurs north of the area initially drilled.

The Company's target is essentially identical to the two large porphyry deposits in the Yerington camp, namely the past-producing Yerington mine and the undeveloped Ann Mason deposit.