Historic gold mining in Nova Scotia, including mining in the Moose River Gold District, has focussed on quartz-vein hosted gold deposits within the Goldenville Formation, typically associated with the limbs and hinges of anticlines. This setting is often referred to as ‘Meguma style’ gold mineralization.

In recent years the existence of disseminated gold mineralization and potential to develop large tonnage, open-pitable resources in Nova Scotia has been recognised, particularly since 1986-87 when drilling around old workings at Moose River Gold Mines intersected wide intervals of relatively low grade gold mineralization in what is now known as the Touquoy gold deposit. Since then, disseminated gold mineralization has been identified at a number of locations, spatially associated with anticlinal fold hinges. Most of that mineralization is associated with argillites or mixed greywacke-argillite units within the Goldenville Formation, including Touquoy, Beaver Dam and Fifteen Mile Stream.

The potential to develop a large tonnage, open pit resource at Touquoy was recognised in 1986 1987 when drilling around old workings at Moose River Gold Mines intersected wide intervals of relatively low grade gold mineralization.

It is this disseminated style of gold mineralization, localised in an anticlinal fold hinge and attended by a relatively small proportion of gold mineralised bedding-parallel quartz veining, which is the focus of the on going development of the Touquoy Gold Deposit.

At Touquoy, by far the largest concentration of gold on the Touquoy Property, the bulk of the gold mineralization, including disseminated mineralization, occurs within the Touquoy Argillite. Gold mineralization in the greywackes, particularly the coarser grained greywackes is mostly restricted to Meguma style, narrow quartz vein hosted gold mineralization. However, both styles of gold mineralization also occur within the mixed argillite and greywacke sequence (Quarry Belt to Higgins Greywacke) overlying the Touquoy Argillite on the northern limb of the anticline. Disseminated and vein-hosted styles are superimposed over the length of the deposit – some 600 m – but at the western end of the deposit, thick sequences (~100 m) of less variable grade gold mineralization predominate while narrower widths (10-20 m) of marginally higher grades become more apparent to the east.

The Touquoy host rocks have been metamorphosed to lower greenschist facies. Detrital minerals, including quartz, feldspar and muscovite, are preserved in the coarser grained (greywacke) lithologies but are largely replaced by metamorphic minerals in the finer grained (siltstone and claystone) lithologies such that the dominant mineral assemblage in the argillites is quartz, muscovite and chlorite +/- albite with accessory illmenite and rutile.

Sulphide minerals accompanying the gold mineralization are pyrrhotite, usually aligned along the axial plane cleavage (1-2%), arsenopyrite, often as coarse porphyroblasts (1%) and pyrite (<1%). Other sulphides are rare. At a macro scale there is poor correlation between arsenic and gold content.

Mining is based on conventional open pit methods suited for the project location and local site requirements.

Mine operations are anticipated to begin at Touquoy, and move to Beaver Dam once the Touquoy pit reserves are exhausted in year 5.

Touquoy Phase 1, West Phase.
This pit targets the west portion of the Touquoy deposit, which contains higher grade gold than the east portion. This phase contains about 3 years’ worth of mill feed. This phase mines from the pit exit at the 115 m elevation, down to the pit bottom at the -25 m elevation. The ramp runs counter-clockwise down from the 115 m pit exit in the north end of the pit, and switchbacks at the 35 m, 10 m and -5 m bench elevations.

Touquoy Phase 2, East Phase.
This phase targets the remaining east portion of the deposit and contains about 1.5 years’ worth of mill feed. It mines from the pit exit at the 125 m elevation, down to the pit bottom at the 50 m elevation. The ramp runs clockwise down from the 125 m pit exit in the south of the pit. Three separate pit bottoms are defined below the 90 m elevation; each is accessed through spurs off of the main ramp at the 90 m bench elevation.

The Touquoy operations require two 4.5 m3 bucket hydraulic excavators and one 7.0 m3 bucket front end wheel loader, which are sized to match the 64 tonne payload haulers and to meet the production requirements of the mining schedule.

The hydraulic excavators are specified to handle the bulk of excavation from the pits, including all identified mineralized zones and the waste rock in those mineralized zones. The wheel loader is specified for mining waste only areas of the pit, re-handling stockpiled material, pit clean up, road construction and snow removal. Blasted patterns will be mined on 5 m or 2.5 m split benches in all mineralized zones, depending on grade control requirements and on 10 m benches or 5 m half benches in all gold barren areas.

The excavator size is chosen based on its ability to minimize losses and dilution for the proposed ore control operations, as well as its proven reliability and relatively large population. It can work effectively on 2.5 m or 5 m split bench heights and can be utilized on full 10 m benches.

The wheel loader is chosen based on its ability to load the truck in 4-6 passes, which is an efficient target for bench face loading scenarios, as well as its proven reliability and relatively large population. The wheel loader is also sized as appropriate for feeding the crusher when required.

Ore and waste rock haulage will be handled by off-highway rigid frame haul trucks with a 64 tonne payload. Haulage profiles are estimated from pit centroids at each bench to designated dumping points for each scheduled time period. The following hauler productivity parameters are applied to calculate the cycle times.

The Touquoy process plant is designed for an ore treatment of 2,000,000 t/y or 250 t/h based on an availability of 8000 h/y, or 91.3%. However the crushing section design is set at 60% availability since it operates outdoors and utilizes modular mobile equipment. It will accept Touquoy ore for the first five years of operation and thereafter ore from the Beaver Dam deposit at the same treatment rate using the same unit operations. Only relatively minor equipment modifications are needed at Touquoy to treat the harder Beaver Dam ore with a higher abrasion index. These factors have been considered in the design of the ball mill equipment and operating costs.

The proposed flow sheet uses conventional processes for:
- Crushing.
- Grinding.
- Gravity recovery.
- Carbon-in-leach (CIL).
- Desorption/Electrowinning/Refining.
- Tailings management and cyanide destruction.

A mobile three stage crushing unit has been selected for the Moose River project ahead of a single stage ball mill. The crushing plant produces a fine ore sized to a P80 of 10 mm. The throughput of the crushing plant package is 5479 t/d or 381 t/h at 60% crushing plant availability. The jaw crusher and grizzly feeder will be relocated from the Touquoy plant to the Beaver Dam mine prior to Beaver Dam ore being processed.

A new simple satellite primary crushing facility consisting of a grizzly feeder, jaw crusher and primary coarse ore stockpile feed conveyor will be required at Beaver Dam fed from a ROM stockpile or direct dump from the mine fleet. This facility will be ready to operate by the time the Touquoy ore is depleted. The crushing circuit has been configured to minimize the transition period for equipment changeover, adopting modular components where practical.

At the transition to Beaver Dam ore processing starting in Year 6, most of the Touquoy crushing circuit will remain unchanged. The following outlines the physical changes required to accommodate the Beaver Dam ore at the Touquoy process plant:
- The primary jaw crusher module will be relocated from the Touquoy location and installed at the Beaver Dam crushing station before Year 6. A coarse ore stockpile feed conveyor will be installed at Beaver Dam along with a new ROM hopper at the crusher station. The remaining secondary and tertiary sections of the Touquoy crushing plant along with the FOS will remain in place unaltered.
- The vibrating feeder at Touquoy will be removed and replaced by a new vibrating pan feeder. The grizzly feeder at Touquoy will be relocated to the Beaver Dam crushing station.
- A new ROM hopper and grizzly identical in size to Touquoy will be installed at Beaver Dam crushing station and the used Touquoy equipment will be fitted.
- The primary crushed ore from Beaver Dam will enter the Touquoy secondary crushing circuit through the existing ROM hopper. A new vibrating feeder and new collection conveyor will be fitted to tie-in to the existing secondary feed conveyor. The downstream equipment will remain unchanged.
- The existing Touquoy ROM hopper and grizzly will provide the direct tip feed point to the main plant for the Beaver Dam ore. The FEL used for the first 5 years of operation to load the ROM will continue to load Beaver Dam ore that is not direct tipped.

Primary crushing at Beaver Dam will provide a primary crushed ore stockpile with two days live volume equivalent to 11,000 t capacity. This stockpile inventory will buffer a commercial ore transport road truck fleet hauling the primary crushed ore to the feed point of the main plant. A fleet of 22 trucks each having a nominal payload of 31 t and requiring 9 cycles per day/truck will deliver the daily tonnage requirement to meet the Touquoy mill demand.

Haul trucks will provide daily ore transport between the Beaver Dam coarse ore stockpile and Touquoy plant. One way hauling distance is approximately 37 km. The main plant will undergo minor retrofits between the Touquoy ROM hopper and secondary crushing section to receive the primary crushed ore.

Also prior to year six, at the back end of the process plant, the tailings line will be re routed to the old Touquoy pit once the Touquoy mining operation has shut down. The reclaim water pump and barge, with a rerouted pipeline to the process water tank, will be later relocated from the TMF to the old Touquoy pit when water accumulation level is adequate in the pit.

The Ball Mill is sized to handle both the Touquoy and Beaver Dam ores without any mechanical adjustment required during the transition between mines. The Touquoy ore is expected to operate at a lower ball volume and steel ball consumption than Beaver Dam ore to compensate for the difference in hardness and abrasion characteristics.

The Touquoy process plant provides indoor space for grinding, gravity concentration and intensive cyanidation, desorption and regeneration, refinery and reagents areas. It also houses plant offices, electrical rooms and a control room. The CIL circuit, preleach thickener, cyanide detoxification tanks and water services tanks are located outdoors in close proximity to the process plant. The reagent storage, warehouse, assay laboratory structures are located within about 55 m of the process plant. Propane storage and the main electrical substation areas are located to the west of the plant area. An air services building is adjacent to the CIL tank area and a water services pump-house is positioned with the water tanks.

Based on testwork results the Beaver Dam ore is harder and has a BWi of 15.3 kWh/t whereas the Touquoy ore is lower at 9.4 kWh/t.

The F80 10 mm mill feed is processed through one single pinion 4.9 m x 8.1 m ball mill in closed circuit with hydrocyclones producing a final product of P80 150µ. The mill has a nominal solids throughput of 5479 t/d and can process 250 t/h at 91.3% availability. The overall ball mill circulating load is 250%.

The mill is sized to handle both the Touquoy and Beaver Dam ores without any mechanical adjustment required during the transition between mines.

A portion of the ball mill circulating load is split and fed into two duty/duty parallel gravity concentrator trains. The gold concentrate recovered is treated in an intensive batch leach system designed to handle 2.4 t/d of concentrate. The resulting concentrated gold solution is pumped to a dedicated eluate tank at the gold room.

The trash screen underflow is increased from 35 to 50% solids in the 18 m diameter high rate pre-leach thickener in preparation for the CIL step.

The leach feed from the thickener underflow is pumped to a linear primary CIL feed sampler. A secondary rotary vezin cutter provides a representative CIL feed sample before entering the leach feed box. The leach feed slurry is subsequently mixed with lime slurry in the leach feed box to raise the slurry pH for cyanide gold extraction. The feed box gravitates to the leach tank and optionally can feed directly to CIL Tank 1.

The circuit is a hybrid CIL type and consists of one leach tank and six adsorption tanks in series, each having a live volume of 1169 m3. The design allows for a 250 t/h solids feed rate at 50% solids for an average 24 hour residence time.

The raw water supply is pumped via submersible pumps (one duty–one standby) from Scraggy Lake to a combined Raw Water/ Fire Water storage tank located within the plant site. During the Beaver Dam phase, raw water will be drawn from Cameron Flow by a single duty submersible raw water pump. This system will be of similar design but smaller in scale than the comparable facility at Touquoy.