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| | | |    More than 4 million ounces of gold were produced in the Goldfield mining district in the early 1900's. Goldfield gold-copper ores are of the high sulfidation-type and generally occur in bonanza-grade epithermal vein-like bodies that are locally referred to as "siliceous ledges". Along with a rich mining history, Metallic Ventures' current mineral resource inventory of more than 1 million ounces of gold and a large land position with excellent mineral exploration potential brings renewed interest in Nevada's Goldfield mining district. Metallic's Goldfield property is the largest land package ever controlled in this world class mining district. The land holdings consist of more than 32 square miles of wholly owned or controlled, patented and unpatented mining claims. Three gold resource areas have been defined on the property that includes Gemfield, McMahon Ridge, and the Goldfield Main district. Goldfield Project Resources
Mineral Resources have been categorized in accordance with classifications defined by the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM"). Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources are that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity, grade can be estimated with a level of confidence sufficient to allow the application of technical and economic parameters to support mine planning and evaluation of the economic viability of the deposit. An Inferred Mineral Resource is that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity and grade can be estimated on the basis of geological evidence and limited sampling and reasonably assumed, but not verified. Company plans for 2008 include internal and third party studies, continued permitting and work for use in a mine feasibility study, and further district mineral exploration. Location and Access The Goldfield Project is located along U.S. Highway 95 approximately 180 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and 260 miles southeast of Reno, Nevada. The project lies to the north and northeast of the town of Goldfield, and access to the three resource areas is provided by well maintained gravel roads. The Goldfield Main deposit is located immediately adjacent to the town site on the east, the McMahon Ridge deposit is 4 miles northeast of town, and the Gemfield deposit lies 2 miles north of Goldfield. Property Description and Area The Goldfield property consists of 484 patented and 978 unpatented mining claims located in Esmeralda and Nye Counties, Nevada. The land holdings are very complex in terms of location, ownership, and spatial relationship of patented and unpatented claims. The Company does not control all of the area within the external property boundary. The land position covers an area of approximately 20,600 acres in the Goldfield mining district. History and Production Gold was first discovered in the Sandstorm and Kendall mine area about two miles north of the town of Goldfield in late 1902. The first shipment of gold ore from the district in November 1903 was from the Combination mine located in the Goldfield Main district. Significant gold production from the district continued through 1919. Only minor gold production is recorded for the district from 1919 through 1942. A majority of the ounces produced after 1919 came from the Bradshaw operation that recovered gold from the tailings of the Goldfield Consolidated Mines Company 100-stamp mill. After 1942 gold production from the district declined considerably, except for an undisclosed number of ounces produced by Newmont in the Goldfield Main district during the period 1948 through 1951. Although there are numerous mines scattered throughout the 40-square-mile district, most of the total recorded production has come from the historic Goldfield Main district. Occasional small mine activity, and some reprocessing of mine and mill tailings, continued into the 1960's. The district also received minor attention for porphyry copper and molybdenum exploration through 1970. According to the Nevada Bureau of Mines, the recorded production for the Goldfield mining district during the period 1903 through 1960 is 4.19 million ounces of gold, 7.67 million pounds of copper, 1.45 million ounces of silver, and 51.7 thousand pounds of lead; produced from 7.74 million tons of ore. Since the deregulation of the gold price in 1971, numerous mineral exploration programs have been conducted in the Goldfield mining district in an attempt to identify new economic gold resources. A partial list of companies that have explored in the district during the last 35 years includes: Cordex, Noranda, Cyprus, Newmont, Meridian, Echo Bay, AMAX, Santa Fe, Kennecott, Franco-Nevada, Cameco, North Mining, and most recently Romarco Minerals. The scope of all of these efforts has been restricted to a large degree by the fragmented character of land ownership in the Goldfield district. Renewed mining and heap leaching operations were also undertaken in the Goldfield mining district after 1971. The early attempts of gold production during this period were initiated by various companies including Blackhawk Mines, Transwestern Mining Company, and the Red Rock Mining Co. These operations mainly processed low grade material from mine dumps and mill tailings, and approximately 15,000 ounces of gold were recovered through 1990. Openpit mining of heap leach ore began in the late 1980's when Dexter Gold Mines mined 357,000 tons grading 0.058 oz/ton gold from the Red Top pit. After acquiring the property in 1990, until closure in 1995, American Resources (ARC) mined approximately 533,000 tons grading 0.044 oz/ton gold from the Combination, Red Top and Jumbo openpits. Decommissioning Services LLC (DSL), acquired the ARC interests and currently assumes reclamation responsibilities for mine disturbance, including openpits, waste dumps, and leach fields. Romarco Nevada Goldfield Inc. (RNGI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Romarco Minerals, entered into a lease/option agreement in 1999 to acquire all of the DSL controlled patented and unpatented mining claims, including the underlying mining leases. Metallic Ventures purchased Romarco's interests in Goldfield, including control of the McMahon Ridge and Main district properties, in 2001. After acquiring Romarco's interests, Metallic Ventures purchased the Gemfield deposit from Franco-Nevada/Newmont Capital in 2002. The Gemfield deposit, discovered by Kennecott in 1992, is located under shallow, unmineralized alluvial cover, and is the only significant gold resource discovered in the Goldfield mining district since the Jumbo Extension boom in 1914. Metallic Ventures exercised the DSL lease/option agreement in 2003 and now owns the majority of the prospective ground in the Goldfield Main district. Metallic Ventures has been actively exploring for gold throughout the Goldfield mining district since 2001. Drilling efforts during the period 2002 through 2005 were mainly focused on delineating and enhancing the gold resources contained in the Gemfield and McMahon Ridge deposits. Some preliminary drill tests have also been conducted in several other target areas including the Tom Keane mine, Adams mine, Sandstorm-Kendall-Kruger mines, and the west Preble Mountain area. Some exploration and condemnation drilling has been conducted along the Columbia Mountain fault zone between the Goldfield Main district and the Adams mine. This area is centrally located with respect to the three known resource areas, and could prove to be a suitable location for ore processing and maintenance facilities. A total of 667 drill holes have been completed by Metallic in the Goldfield Project area, including 241 holes on McMahon Ridge and 235 holes in the Gemfield deposit. The Metallic Ventures exploration drill hole database for the Goldfield district contains detailed geology and assay information for 2,400 holes. The Company is currently involved in economic scoping studies for the Gemfield and McMahon Ridge gold deposits. The goal of this work is to complete the major first step toward converting gold resource ounces to reserves. District Geology The Goldfield mining district is located at the site of a complex and long-lived volcanic center that is defined by a thick sequence of eruptive volcanic rocks including tuffs, domes, and flows. The volcanic rocks and some interbedded volcaniclastic sediments range in age from Oligocene to Miocene. Company geologists believe that the widespread hydrothermal alteration and gold-copper ores are probably genetically related to a buried igneous intrusive complex that is felsic to intermediate in composition. The age of mineralization in the Goldfield district has been determined to be Miocene and probably falls within the range of 20.3 to 19.8 million years. The major right-lateral, northwest striking Walker Lane structural belt is believed to have been instrumental in localizing the Goldfield volcanic center and related gold-copper mineral deposits. Prospects and small mines occur throughout the Goldfield mining district, however, the vast majority of historic precious and base metal production has come from rich ore bodies in the Goldfield Main district. Mineralization is dominantly structurally controlled and spatially associated with siliceous ledges. Bonanza-grade ore bodies occur as irregular sheets and pipes within or along the margins of the silica ledges. In contrast to the often high-angle, cross-cutting structural setting of the ore bodies in the Goldfield Main and McMahon Ridge deposits, gold mineralization in the Gemfield deposit is essentially strata-bound, and is hosted in the Sandstorm Rhyolite. High-grade (+0.5 oz/ton gold) values are most often associated with stratiform lenses or crosscutting silica ledge zones that are not known to extend beyond the upper or lower contacts of the Sandstorm Rhyolite. Goldfield district ores consist of native gold associated with bismuth and copper-arsenic-antimony-bearing sulfides and tellurides including bismuthinite, famatinite, and goldfieldite. Fine native gold is often visible in the rich ores characteristic of the Goldfield Main district, although it also occurs as fine particles in base metal sulfides. Deposit Geology and Mineralization Gemfield Deposit: The geologic setting for gold mineralization in the Gemfield deposit is unique in terms of the Goldfield district in that (1) it is strata-bound in character and hosted in the 28.6 million-year-old Sandstorm Rhyolite, and (2) a significant tonnage of low-grade disseminated gold mineralization is present as a halo surrounding the generally higher-grade siliceous ledges. Silica ledges are either stratiform, or controlled by cross-cutting structures contained within the Sandstorm Rhyolite. There is little evidence of significant alteration or mineralization extending beyond the formational contacts of the Sandstorm Rhyolite, either above or below. The low-grade disseminated gold halo in the Gemfield deposit is believed to be genetically related a pre-gold stage acid leach event that greatly enhanced the porosity and permeability characteristics of the strongly flow-banded Sandstorm Rhyolite. The Gemfield deposit occurs within a north-trending structural horst block that is bound on the east, west, and south by post-mineral normal faults. The deposit has a known strike length of approximately 2,400 feet and is 1,200 feet wide at the widest point. The mineralized body trends approximately N 30° to 35º E, although high-grade gold ledge zones may strike from north-south to N 60º E. The depth of gold mineralization beneath barren alluvial cover varies from about 10 feet in the northeast part of the deposit where the Sandstorm Rhyolite has been removed by erosion, to a maximum depth of nearly 700 feet at the southwest end of the deposit. Post-mineral normal faulting has also truncated mineralization on the northeast and southwest ends of the deposit, but mineralization is open at depth in both directions. Shallow low-grade mineralization is also open to the north, northwest, and southeast. The true thickness of mineralization (greater than 0.01 oz/ton gold) averages about 100 feet, but may be 200 feet or more locally. Based on sample assays from more than 400 reverse circulation and diamond drill holes, economic gold grades generally range from 0.01 to 2.0 oz/ton gold. The highest individual assay obtained to date, 42.282 oz/ton gold, represents a five-foot interval from 80 to 85 feet in reverse circulation drill hole GEM-268. The presence of high-grade gold mineralization in GEM-268 has been verified by a diamond drill hole twin (GEM-381C), which returned a value of 30.588 oz/ton gold over a 2.5-foot sample interval from 81.0 to 83.5 feet. A total of 14 drill samples in the Gemfield deposit have assay values greater than 1.0 oz/ton gold. McMahon Ridge Deposit: The McMahon Ridge deposit is situated within a generally east-west striking, steeply south dipping structural zone that is subparallel to the East Goldfield structural trend which passes through the Goldfield Main district on the west end. Gold mineralization is structurally controlled and is hosted mainly within volcanic flows and lahars of the 21.5 million-year-old Milltown Andesite. The gold deposit has a strike length of approximately 5,000 feet, which includes about 3,600 feet along the main east-west trend and 1,400 feet along the northeast-trending, northwest dipping, Belmont fault zone. The mineralized zone consists of a number of steeply south-dipping to near-vertical subparallel fault splays and has a vertical range of approximately 800 feet. The deposit width varies considerably both along strike and with depth ranging from about 250 feet wide at the surface to less than 10 feet wide at depths below 600 feet. The high-grade ore shoots, while predominantly east-west oriented, are also hosted within northwest and northeast striking cross-structures. Based on the assay results from approximately 350 reverse circulation and diamond core holes, economic gold values range from 0.010 to 5.863 ounces per ton gold. There are a total of 26 drill sample intervals in the McMahon Ridge deposit that have gold assay values greater than or equal to 1.000 oz/ton gold. Goldfield Main Deposit: The Goldfield Main deposit is located along the southwest edge of the erosional window that exposes the Miocene volcanic rocks of the Goldfield volcanic field. Mineralization occurs primarily within north-trending, east-dipping fault zones that cut a large 20- to 23-million year old dacite-rhyodacite flow dome complex. The mineralized zone can be 300 feet or more in width at the surface as defined by the irregular pattern of mineralized fault zones and envelope of strong, pervasive wall-rock alteration. Inside of the generally low-grade (<0.1 oz/ton gold) alteration envelopes, isolated pods of bonanza grades (> 1 oz/ton gold) most often occur at structural intersections, or in open flexures along fault planes. Historic mining efforts targeted these high-grade zones resulting in an intricate and often inter-connecting maze of high-grade ore shoots. Many of the stopes in the Goldfield Main district are often back-filled with historically "low-grade" mineralized rock (0.0x to >1.0 oz/ton gold). Mineralized structures tend to coalesce into a shallow east-dipping structural zone that averages about 100 feet thick, at depths below 200 to 300 feet. Significant mineralization and much of the historic production in Goldfield was hosted in a strongly silicified fault zone where it passes through the lower part of the dacite flow-dome sequence. The mineralized zone continues downdip into the underlying latite; however, the thickness and continuity of the structural zone, and the presence of significant gold mineralization, generally weakens below the lower dacite contact. Gold-copper mineralization in the Goldfield Main district has a north-northwesterly strike length of over 5,000 feet. The east-dipping mineralized zone can be followed downdip for over 3,500 feet in plan, and to over 1,700 feet in vertical depth. Despite the large vertical extent of mineralization, the majority of the underground workings and past mineral production occur within about 600 feet of the surface. The east-west dimension of this mining area is approximately 1,500 feet. Openpit mining at the Red Top, Combination, and Jumbo mines in the late 1980's and early 1990's targeted bulk tonnage, heap leach ore. Potentially economic near-surface gold mineralization still remains in the 1,400 feet of strike length that extends between the Red Top and Combination openpit mines. Potentially economic mineralized rock is also exposed in the bottoms of all three of these openpit mines. The current Goldfield Main drill-indicated gold resource includes both the near-surface gold mineralization between the two openpits and also the downdip mineralization below the pit floors. About 990 drill holes have been completed by various companies in the Goldfield Main district; however, most are less than 300 feet deep and only targeted near-surface oxide mineralization. Very few exploration drill holes penetrate the main mineralized zone below the 5,300-foot level (~400 feet below the present surface). AMEC Preliminary Assessment In September 2006, the Company announced the results of a Preliminary Assessment report completed by AMEC. The Company has moved the project into the prefeasibility stage. During the prefeasibility process, capital and operating costs will be clearly defined and the mining and metallurgical parameters of the Gemfield and McMahon Ridge deposits will be refined. The Main deposit resources that were not included in the AMEC assessment will be incorporated into the mine and process models. Final condemnation drilling and appropriate environmental studies will also be initiated as part for the prefeasibility process. In May 2006, the Company completed 2,830 feet of reverse circulation drilling at the Goldfield Project. The drill program was designed to better define a high-grade ore block within the known Gemfield gold resource area. The results confirmed the presence of shallow high-grade gold mineralization in the area drilled and provided a better understanding of the geology, geometry and trend of mineralization. Life of Mine Production Schedule The Company commissioned AMEC to conduct the following work on the Gemfield and McMahon Ridge gold deposits within the Goldfield Project: a review of project exploration data, geological models, resource estimates, scoping-level determination of mining and processing operating costs, preliminary pit designs, assessments of mining rates, review of metallurgy and process options. The AMEC work was completed and reported in September of 2006 in a report titled "Preliminary Assessment Gemfield and McMahon Ridge Deposits Goldfield District, Nevada". AMEC verified that exploration data is of suitable quality to support preparation of resource estimates. Assistance was also provided in preparing resource estimates to ensure the estimates were acceptable for mine designs and compliant with Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves (2000), CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves (2000) and Canadian National Instrument 43--101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators. The following are production information highlights and assumptions from the AMEC "Preliminary Assessment Gemfield and McMahon Ridge Deposits Goldfield District, Nevada" Report. Life of Mine Production Schedule Gemfield and McMahon Ridge Deposits
Operating costs were based on mining 5,500 tpd ore (2,007,500 tpy) and heap leach processing of the ore. A conventional truck and shovel operation is envisioned, with a crusher and heap leach pad located south of the Gemfield pit in the vicinity of the historical facilities. The optimization parameters for the table above are presented below.
The preliminary assessment is preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them such that these materials could be categorized as Mineral Reserves. There is no certainty that the preliminary assessment will be realized. Exploration Target Areas Numerous small mines and hundreds of prospects occur throughout this large mining district, and a number of excellent exploration targets remain to be tested or further developed. Several of the more important target areas are described below. Gemfield: Probably the most attractive exploration target area in the Goldfield mining district includes the land immediately surrounding the Gemfield deposit, especially to the northeast and southwest along strike of the long axis of the mineralized zone. To date drilling has also shown that the Gemfield deposit has been truncated by post-mineral normal faults on the east and west sides of the mineralized trend. Several widely spaced drill holes indicate that strata-bound gold mineralization hosted in the Sandstorm Rhyolite continues beyond the apparent limits defined by post-mineral faulting. A third prospective area lies to the southeast of the Gemfield deposit where a number of exploration drill holes have encountered a thick zone of low-grade gold similar to that which surrounds high-grade ledge mineralization in the main part of the Gemfield gold deposit. Each of these three exploration areas provides an excellent opportunity to expand the size of the Gemfield gold resource. East Goldfield: East Goldfield contains numerous small mines and prospects, Goldfield-style ledges, quartz-alunite alteration, and untested rock and soil geochemical anomalies. This area provides several target areas for follow-up mineral exploration activities including drilling. This approximately 15 square mile area contains similar host rocks and occurrences of high-grade gold-copper ores to those in the Goldfield Main and McMahon Ridge deposits. Many of the small mines, including the Excelsior, Tom Keane, and Pittsburg, are localized along well developed west-northwest trending fault zones. The East Goldfield structural belt extends for approximately six miles east of the Goldfield Main district and hosts numerous small mines and prospects. Limited drilling in the vicinity of old mine workings within this belt has encountered ore-grade gold mineralization with values up to 0.420 oz/ton gold (hole GFTK-6). Dump samples contain values up to 10.4 oz/ton gold. Field evidence throughout the East Goldfield target area suggests that the eastern half the district may be downthrown with respect to the west. Hydrothermal alteration in this area is dominated by supergene alunite, jarosite, and kaolinite indicative of intense acid leaching that occurred above the paleo-water table. This suggests that potential ore zones in the eastern half of the Goldfield mining district may occur at slightly deeper levels of exposure than those to the west, and more importantly, bedrock exposures on the east are represented by only weakly mineralized or barren acid leached cap rocks, which are common in the upper levels of acid-sulfate, gold-copper hydrothermal systems. Northeast Goldfield: Large areas characterized by moderate to intense advanced argillic alteration and anomalous gold and trace element geochemistry are common in the northeast part of the Goldfield district. These areas have been mapped, and favorable host rocks such as the Milltown Andesite, dacite porphyry, and thick accumulations of the volcaniclastic sediments of the "Diamondfield Formation" (Tsf1 of Ashley, shale portion of the Sandstorm Rhyolite of Ransome) are either exposed or known to occur at shallow depths. This region is considered to be highly prospective for Goldfield Main or McMahon Ridge-style, structurally controlled gold deposits. Strata-bound gold mineralization hosted in the tuffaceous sediments of the Diamondfield Formation is also considered to be an excellent target model to be considered for future gold exploration in this target area. Northwest Goldfield and Mineral Wealth Target Areas: The Sandstorm, Kendall, Kruger, Adams and Conqueror mines produced small tonnages of high-grade, near-surface gold ore during the early stages of development in the Goldfield mining district. More recently in the early 1980's, approximately 4,000 tons of 0.1 oz/ton heap leach gold ore was produced from shallow openpit mines in the Adams-Conqueror mine area. High-grade gold mineralization in the northwest part of the Goldfield district tends to occur in structurally-controlled ore bodies; however, most of the productive mineralized zones in the Kendall, Sandstorm, and Kruger mines are also strata-bound in character, and hosted in the Sandstorm Rhyolite. From an exploration standpoint, the Sandstorm Rhyolite is present in the area between the Kruger mine on the east and the Gemfield deposit on the west. This mile-wide area exhibits a high potential for the discovery of additional Gemfield-style strata-bound gold ore bodies. The Mineral Wealth target area is located approximately 1 to 1.5 miles north-northeast of the Kendall mine. Kennecott Exploration drilled several widely-spaced exploration holes in this area and encountered gold values up to 0.114 oz/ton in the Sandstorm Rhyolite-Diamondfield-Morena Rhyolite stratigraphic section, beneath weakly altered and unmineralized Milltown Andesite. Porphyry Copper-Gold Target: As mentioned earlier, the Goldfield hydrothermal system and associated gold-copper deposits are interpreted to be of the high-sulfidation type and probably are intrusive related. This classification is corroborated by abundant geologic evidence including geochemistry, mineralogy of hydrothermal alteration and ore deposits, and igneous petrology. Nearly every significant geologic feature of the Goldfield mining district can be found in one or more of the numerous world-class, acid-sulfate-type gold-copper deposits found around the Pacific Rim from the southwestern United States, South America, Philippines, Indonesia, to Japan. In general, high sulfidation- or acid-sulfate-type gold-copper systems become increasingly copper-rich with depth, and there are numerous examples where the more distal or high level, epithermal, gold-rich deposits are genetically linked to a deeper gold-bearing copper porphyry deposit. A few examples of high-sulfidation systems that have formed as shoulders to porphyry intrusions include: Lepanto and the Far Southeast porphyry copper deposit in the Philippines; Batu Hijau, Horse-Ivaal, and Frieda River in Papua New Guinea; Lookout Rocks in New Zealand, Cabang Kiri in Indonesia; and Vuda in Fiji. The increase in copper content of the Goldfield hydrothermal system is well documented by examples in the deep Goldfield mines along the east side of the Goldfield Main district (e.g. Clermont, Grizzly Bear, Jumbo Extension, and Spearhead mines). Based on a number of key points such as (1) the geologic history and evolution of the Goldfield volcanic center, (2) the pre-mineral structural development including a major northwest striking Walker Lane right lateral strike-slip structural zone, (3) ore mineralogy and trace element geochemistry, and (4) the mineral zoning pattern of advanced argillic hydrothermal alteration mineral species, there is little doubt that the Goldfield district presents an attractive porphyry copper-gold exploration target. Photos & Maps | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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