Talisker acquired all of the common shares of Bralorne Gold Mines Ltd., Avino's wholly-owned subsidiary which owns the Project, in exchange for:
- A cash payment of $8.7 million;
- 12,580,000 common shares of Talisker, representing 9.9% of the number of outstanding Common Shares; and
- 6,290,000 Common Share purchase warrants, with each Warrant being exercisable at $0.25 for a period of three years from closing, subject to acceleration in the event the closing price of Common Shares is greater than $0.35 for 20 or more consecutive trading days at any time following April 14, 2020.
A cash payment of US$2.5 million will be payable to Avino on commencement of commercial production of the Project.
Summary:
The Bralorne-Pioneer gold-bearing veins were deposited from low salinity fluids at 300°C to 400°C and 1.25 kbar to 1.75 kbar (Leitch, 1990). The vein style, structure, mineralogy, and alteration are all similar to those defined for orogenic gold deposits (Groves et al., 1998).
The Bralorne Pioneer gold deposit, therefore, belongs to a well-recognized group of deposits referred to as mesothermal, orogenic or greenstone-hosted quartz-carbonate gold vein deposits. These deposits include the Mother Lode district in California and most of the greenstone-hosted gold deposits in the Canadian Shield, including the Timmins, Val d'Or and Red Lake camps. These deposits are quartz-carbonate veins hosted in moderately to steeply dipping brittle-ductile shear zones and, locally, in shallow dipping extensional fractures.
The gold-quartz veins form an approximate en echelon array. They have strike lengths of as much as 1,500 m between bounding fault structures, and extend to at least 2,000 m in depth, with no significant changes in grade or style of mineralization recorded. Ores consist mainly of ribboned fissure veins with septa defined by fine-grained chlorite, sericite, graphite or sulphide minerals. Massive white quartz tension veins also comprise some of the ore, although thinner connecting cross-veins are generally sub-economic. The fissure veins tend to be larger, thicker, and host the higher gold grades. The most conspicuous alteration mineral is bright green, chrome-bearing phyllosilicate that occurs in basaltic and ultramafic host rocks, composed of fuchsite, mariposite
or Cr-illite.
Most veins are 0.9 m to 1.5 m wide, ranging up to 6 m in a few places, and are composed of quartz with minor carbonates, talc, mica, sulphides, scheelite and native gold. The quartz is milky white and usually banded with numerous partings and septa of grey wallrock included in the veins (Church and Jones, 1999).
Veins are dominantly composed of quartz, with minor carbonate minerals, mainly calcite and ankerite, and lesser amounts of chlorite, sericite, clay altered mariposite, talc, scheelite and native gold. Sulphides are present and, although locally abundant, make up less than 1% of total vein volume. Pyrite and arsenopyrite are the most abundant sulphides with lesser marcasite, pyrrhotite, sphalerite, stibnite, galena, chalcopyrite and rare tetrahedrite.
Three types of veins are recognized on the Property: fissure, tension and cross veins. Fissure veins are the richest and most continuous in the camp and include the 51, 55 and 77 veins at Bralorne, the Main vein at Pioneer and the Peter vein. They have been traced continuously for up to 1,500 m along a 110° to 145° strike and to a depth of 1,800 m down a steep northerly dip. The fissure veins are commonly ribbon-banded. They have an average width of 1 m to 1.5 m but often pinch and swell, ranging from centimeters to seven meters in width. Tension veins are generally less continuous than the fissure veins with maximum strike lengths of 500 m and similar dip extensions. They are characterized by massive white quartz with erratic high-gold values, openspaced filling textures, commonly including pockets of drusy to cockscomb quartz between widely spaced and slickensided septae. They are usually not as rich as fissure veins and are hosted in fault sets that strike roughly 70° and dip about 75° northwest. These tension veins form oblique splays off of the fissure veins. They include the 75 and 83 veins at Bralorne and the 27 vein at Pioneer. Cross veins are sub economic and are interpreted to be connecting structures between the fissure and tension veins (Ash, 2001).
The historic King, Bralorne and Pioneer mines all lay within the current Bralorne Property. These mines developed a total of 30 veins through a number of shafts and 80 kilometers of
tunnels on 44 levels, the deepest of which traced the 77 vein to a depth of 1,900 m (Church and
Jones, 1999). The areas between these mines were not controlled by the main producing
companies at the time the mines were operated, so these gap areas were never developed. Since the mine workings extend to the limits of the old claim boundaries, it is reasonable to expect mineralization to occur in the gap areas, with the same potential frequency of gold mineralization as that found in the mined areas. Talisker controls the mineral claims covering these gap areas.
In addition to the three major past producing mines on the Property, the King, Bralorne and Pioneer mines, the Company’s claims cover seven additional developed prospects; notably the Arizona, Forty Thieves, Gloria Kitty, Why Not, California, Cosmopolitan and Pioneer Extension. These developed prospects span 12 km of strike length along the Cadwallader fault system with numerous other prospects, showings and anomalies identified on the Property