A primary component of the geology for the Sheep Mountain Project is the Battle Spring Formation. Battle Spring is Eocene in age. Prior to deposition of the Battle Spring Formation and subsequent younger Tertiary formations, underlying Paleocene, Cretaceous, and older formations were deformed during the Laramide Orogeny. During the Laramide Orogeny, faults, including the Emigrant Thrust Fault at the northern end of the project area, were active and displaced sediments by over 20,000 feet. Coincident with this mountain building event, Paleocene and older formations were folded in a series of echelon anticlines and synclines, generally trending from southeast to northwest. The Battle Spring Formation was deposited unconformably on an erosional landscape influenced by these pre-depositional features. Initial stream channels transporting clastic sediments from the Granite Mountains formed in the synclinal valleys.

The geologic setting of the Sheep Mountain Project is important in that it controlled uranium mineralization by focusing movement of the groundwaters, which emplaced the uranium into the stream channels, which had developed on the pre-tertiary landscape. The Battle Spring Formation and associated mineralization at the Sheep Mountain Project is bounded to the east by the western flank of the Sheep Mountain Syncline and to the west by the Spring Creek Anticline. To the north the system is cut off by erosion. To the south the Battle Spring continues into the nor ........

The Sheep Mountain Project includes the Congo Pit, comprised of the Congo, North Gap, and South Congo areas.

The current mine design for the Congo Pit includes typical highwall heights in the range of 100 to 400 feet and reaches a maximum depth of 600 feet in localized areas in the southeast pit corner. The open pit design employs similar design parameters and mining equipment configurations to those used successfully in past Wyoming conventional mine operations. Highwall design is based upon the performance of past projects in the Sheep Mountain and Gas Hills districts and includes an average highwall slope of 0.7:1 (horizontal: vertical), which reflects the average of a 10-foot bench width and 50-foot highwall at a 0.5:1 slope.

The host formation is exposed at the surface and dips between 9 and 16 degrees to the southeast. The initial pit construction will create access from the open pit mine area to the mine waste and stockpile areas. Subsequent pit extensions will utilize this access. Shallow mineralized areas exist along the north and northwest portions of the pit. As a result, the overall mine sequence begins in the areas where the mineralized zones have the least amount of cover and proceeds essentially along formational dip. The first 6 pits are constructed in a panel along the up-dip portion of the deposit and are the shallowest.

The proposed primary stripping fleet consists of four 637 CAT twin engine scrapers paired with four 631 CA ........

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