The known deposits within the Atlantic operation area are considered to be examples of turbidite-hosted, orogenic mesothermal gold deposits.

Strata of the Meguma Terrane in eastern mainland Nova Scotia include the basal greywacke-dominated Goldenville Group and the overlying, finer-grained, argillitedominated Halifax Group. Cochrane Hill is hosted in the basal Goldenville Group.

The Cochrane Hill property encompasses a section of the northeast-trending Cochrane Hill anticline which can be traced for at least 28 km from a position approximately 14 km west of the Cochrane Hill deposit, to approximately 12 km east of the Cochrane Hill deposit. The Cochrane Hill anticline is a tight to isoclinal fold in the vicinity of the Cochrane Hill deposit, overturned with both limbs dipping to the north at between 55° and 80°.

The host interbedded argillite and greywacke sequence may either represent sediments of the Moose River Formation or the Tangier Formation.

Structure
There appears to be very little disruption of the mineralised zone by post-mineralization faulting. Although physical evidence in core is limited, historical geophysical data along with observations from logging geologists suggest a steep northwest-trending fault just west of line 3000E could divide the property into a western domain and an eastern domain, which supports a metallurgical divide as seen in geostatistical evaluations.

Metamorphism
Litholog ........

Mining is based on conventional open pit methods suited for the project location and local site requirements. The mining fleet will include diesel powered down the hole (DTH) drills with 144 mm bit size for production drilling, diesel-powered RC drills for bench-scale grade control drilling, 5 m3 bucket size diesel hydraulic excavators and 7 m3 bucket sized wheel loaders for production loading, and 64 t payload rigid-frame haul trucks and 41 t articulated trucks for production hauling, plus ancillary and service equipment to support the mining operations. In-pit dewatering systems will be established for each pit. All surface water and precipitation in the pits will be handled by submersible pumps.

Two independent stand-alone open pit operations at Fifteen Mile Stream and Cochrane Hill will run concurrently with the Touquoy and Beaver Dam operations.

At Cochrane Hill, ore will be hauled to a crusher to be situated 1,200 m east of the pit, which will feed the process plant. Waste rock will be split into PAG and NPAG material and will be deposited into a WRSFs to be located 700 m north of the pit or will be used as rock fill in construction of the TMF that will be situated 1,300 m southeast of the pit.

The Cochrane Hill pit is split into south and north phases with the higher-grade south phase mined ahead of the north phase. A starter phase is also designed to provide waste rock construction materials to the starter tailings dam.

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