The Canadian exploration company made the deal to acquire the Mt Thom-based deposit from Canadian Goldcamps Corp in exchange for 200,000 common shares. 

The property - which is about 22km east of Truro - is an iron oxide copper-gold-type (IOCG) deposit, with 29 mineral claims over four contiguous licences that cover roughly 11.6ha. 

"The project has excellent surrounding infrastructure, with a powerline and highway access on the claims, and [is] located within 90 minutes of international sea and airport facilities," CEO Terry Coughlan said. 

"Having already demonstrated the existence of high-grade copper and cobalt mineralisation, two strategic metals of Canada's Green future, we're excited with the addition of the Mt Thom project to our extensive near-drill-ready IOCG portfolio and look forward to it providing some very interesting results," he added. 

The company did, however, caution that there was a risk that further exploration would not result in the delineation of a current mineral resource, as a qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves.

Mongoose explained that the Steele Run deposit was discovered by Imperial Oil in the 1970s and was only tested for copper at the time. 

"Mineralised outcrop and sporadic core sampling over the past few years have produced historical assays of up to 0.863% cobalt within the copper zones," Mongoose said. 

"A 2004 government study of 29 core samples encountered values ranging from 157 parts per million (0.157%) cobalt to 8,630 parts per million (0.863%)," the company said. 

The explorer said there is a non-National Instrument 43-101-compliant historical resource of 300,000 tonnes of copper grading 1.5% over 3,500m that has been delineated from drill core currently stored at the Nova Scotia government core library. It was yet to be systemically tested for cobalt mineralisation. 

The Toronto Stock Exchange showed Mongoose's share price was C$0.245/share on February 13, which was up 7%. The company had been trading around the C$0.20/share mark throughout this year. 

Mongoose's market capitalisation was C$7.83 million, according to the TSX.