Deposits of this type are referred to in many ways, such as; gold quartz veins or lodes, mesothermal gold, shear-hosted or shear zone gold, orogenic gold, syn-orogenic veins, Mother Lode gold, etc.

Locally, these deposits occur primarily as quartz veins, stockworks or stringer zones in fault, fracture and shear zones and are typified by the variability of host rocks which are affected by pervasive carbonatization with localized sericitization and sulfidation marginal to gold-bearing quartz veins.

In the Yellowjacket Zone, ophiolite-hosted gold quartz veins stockworks or breccias are contained within faultbounded lenses of oceanic igneous crust. Listwanite altered ultramafic rocks are consistently associated with the ophiolite-hosted gold veins, but rarely host them. This deposit type contains very high grade, coarse native gold occurring in quartz veins or flooding hosted by ophiolitic mafic igneous crustal rocks (gabbro, diabase, basalt, andesite) adjacent to listwanite altered ultramafic rocks.

Placer deposits in the camp are situated in stream valleys cutting erosional windows through the carbonatized relatively flat lying thrust faults within the Atlin ophiolitic assemblage.

Historically, significant economic concentrations of placer gold are restricted to streams in the Pine Creek and McKee Creek watersheds. It appears that preferential erosion through flat-lying mineralized thrust contacts in both these areas was accelerated along high-angle, post accretionary fault zones. This interpretation is supported by the presence of fault breccia zones within both these valleys.

Lode gold mineralization associated with the thrust sheet of ultramafic cumulate rocks includes showings hosted by faults bounding this thrust sheet, including the Yellowjacket, Imperial, Surprise and Lakeview (see Adjacent Properties section). The Yellowjacket showing is associated with the basal faulted contact of this ultramafic body along the Pine Creek valley. The contact between the hangingwall ultramafites and footwall metabasalts is not exposed but is well defined by exploration drill holes (Marud, 1988). The zone of thrusting is characterized by up to 15 metres of carbonate alteration that contains intermittent zones of quartz-carbonate veining in both hangingwall and footwall rocks.

On the Atlin Gold Property the thrust fault is disrupted by a later, east-trending, steeply dipping structure referred to as the Pine Creek Fault. This high angle fault zone averages approximately 70 metres in width and can be described as a fault breccia. The fault is characterized by strongly broken and fractured rocks, with gouge and rubble zones ranging from centimetres to more than 10 metres wide. The zone contains irregular blocks and lenses of all the lithologies that are typical of the Atlin ophiolitic assemblage, metamorphosed basalt, diabase, gabbro and ultramafics as well as younger felsic rocks. Ultramafic rocks vary from completely serpentinized to completely carbonatized, with or without quartz veining.

On July 10, 2009, the Yellowjacket Gold Mine received its BC Mines Act Permit for the development and operation of an open pit gold mine and onsite concentrator processing up to 75,000 tonnes per year of gold ore.

The permitted mine life is 7 years with an average anticipated production of 50,000 tonnes of mineralized bedrock.

The primary bedrock and surficial material removal equipment is comprised of excavators and 30 tonne articulating rock trucks. Due to the soft fractured nature of the bedrock in the area of excavation, no drilling or blasting is required during the mining cycle.

Process feed and waste will be hauled out of the pits along the northern perimeter of the existing stockpile area. Two mineralized material stockpiles will be developed (one of 25,000 tonnes located near the process plant and another of 15,000 tonnes opposite the waste stockpile) along with a waste rock dump (about 25,000 tonnes).

The Yellowjacket Gold Project processing facility utilizes a 60 centimeter jaw crusher and a 60 centimeter double roll crusher. With recent implementation of a semi autogenous grind “SAG” mill, only the jaw crusher is utilized for production crushing. The roll crusher can be used for site road material if needed. The jaw crusher crushes the plus 10 centimeter “run of mine” oversize that gets rejected by the SAG mill feeder grizzly.

The mill at the Yellowjacket Gold Project is a standard grinding and gravity plant. The mill is an outdoor facility and future plans entail building an enclosure around the mill equipment utilizing a building or tent style structure.

“Run of mine” feed is supplied to a 90 centimeter wide hopper via rubber tired loader. The hopper has a 10 centimeter angled grizzly above. The grizzly scalps off the 10 centimeter plus material, which is sent to the jaw crusher and returned back to the apron feed hopper. The apron feeder has a variable frequency drive (“VFD”) so mill feed rates can be regulated. The feeder discharges onto a conveyor with an attached weightometer allowing measurements of tonnage throughput.

The conveyor feeds a 200 HP 1.5 X 3.0 meter open circuit SAG mill. The SAG mill is a wet grind, grate discharge mill. The SAG mill discharges to a pump box and is then pumped to a 25 centimeter cyclone. Cyclone overflow goes to a 50 centimeter diameter Knelson CD-20 Concentrator. Cyclone underflow is screened, with screen undersize going to a second 50 centimeter Knelson CD-20 Concentrator and screen oversize to a 2.1 X 2.4 meter closed circuit overflow ball mill. This leased ball mill has a 300 HP motor, which is oversized for this size of mill, therefore only 150 HP is utilized.

There are two 50 centimeter diameter Knelson CD-20 Concentrators in the Yellowjacket Gold Project mill. The primary concentrator is used as a scalping concentrator and recovers the majority of the liberated gold. The second concentrator is used as a scavenger concentrator to pick up additional liberated gold prior to tailings discharge. Both Knelson Concentrators discharge concentrate to the concentrate storage tank. The flush cycle (and hence final concentrate volumes) is time-regulated using a programmable logic controller (“PLC”), an integral part of the mill.