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; however, disseminated gold has also been recognised in greywacke host rocks within the Goldenville Group at North Brookfield and several other sites.

At Beaver Dam the highest gold grades are typically associated with bedding-parallel tabular quartz veins localised on the southern limb near the hinge zone of the Moose River Fifteen Mile Stream Anticline. However, the host rock material between quartz veins also carries significant gold grades. It is the quartz vein hosted gold mineralization augmented by disseminated style mineralization that forms the basis of a geological model associated with the ongoing exploration and development of the Beaver Dam gold deposit.

Gold mineralization at Beaver Dam has been recognised over a strike length of approximately 1.4 km, extending from the Main Zone northwest to the Mill Shaft Zone. Historic drilling has shown that mineralization weakens between the Main Zone and Mill Shaft Zone and detailed drilling by Acadian is limited to a section approximately 800 m in length in the Main Zone. The eastern end of the main zone is controlled by the Mud Lake Fault and possible offsets to the mineralization have been identified between the Mud Lake and Cameron Flowage faults and in the Northeast Zone, immediately east of the Cameron Flowage Fault.

The gold mineralization at Beaver Dam occurs both within quartz veins and within the argillite and greywacke host rocks. The quartz veins that host gold mineralization are more commonly bedding parallel but also include cross-cutting veins. Quartz veins are generally in the range of 0.5 cm to 20 cm thickness and frequently include sulphides, particularly pyrrhotite, pyrite and/or arsenopyrite with lesser chalcopyrite, galena or sphalerite. Gold commonly occurs within quartz veins as coarse (>1 mm) grains and clusters of finer (<1 mm), but still visible grains. Coarse gold grains are more likely to be found at vein-wall rock contacts and are often spatially associated with sulphides.

Anomalous gold grades in the 0.1 g/t to 4 g/t range have been returned for intervals with no quartz veins or visible gold. This argillite and greywacke hosted (or disseminated) gold mineralization is often associated with sulphides including pyrrhotite, pyrite, arsenopyrite and chalcopyrite.

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.

B621 targets the south portion of the deposit, which contains a higher grade gold and lower strip ratio than the north portion. This phase contains about 1.5 years’ worth of mill feed and mines from the pit exit at the 130 m elevation, down to the pit bottom at the 45 m elevation. The ramp runs counter-clockwise down from the 130 m pit exit in the east of the pit and switchbacks at the 85 m bench elevation.

B622 pushes the north and east wall to the ultimate limits and extends the bottom of the pit below the first pit phase. This phase contains about 1.5 years’ worth of mill feed and mines from the pit exit at the 130 m elevation, down to the pit bottom at the -45 m elevation. The ramp runs counter-clockwise down from the 130 m pit exit in the east of the pit.

The Beaver Dam operations require an additional two excavators and one wheel loader.

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.

At Beaver Dam, ore will be hauled to a crusher that will be located 600 m south of the pit, and then crushed ore will be hauled by on-highway haulers from Beaver Dam to the process plant at Touquoy operations.

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.
- Gr ........