The Scotia Mine Deposit mineralization has long been considered a Mississippi Valley-type (“MVT”) lead zinc deposit (MacEachern and Hannon, 1974). Characteristics of sedimentary formations that host MVT lead zinc mineralization include shallow-water, shelf-type carbonate rocks with reefs around the peripheries of intracratonic basins, karst structures, limestone-dolomite interfaces, and proximity to a major hydrocarbon-bearing basin.

At the Scotia Mine Deposit, textures (including fossils) have been preserved; representing volume- for-volume replacement of original limestones by dolomite, and the sulphides are, in turn, replacements and porosity fillings within the previously altered host rocks. Kontak (2002) feels that petroleum in fluid inclusions in the Scotia Mine Deposit mineralization suggest a role of hydrocarbons in the mineralising process, like many MVTs, but Sangster and others (1998) point to basement rocks underlying the Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks as the source of the mineralising fluids.

Locally, the Scotia Mine is located in the Gays River Geological Formation, part of the Windsor Group of Carboniferous aged rocks.

The carbonates of this formation started growing in a warm sea of Carboniferous age when the ocean invaded the Maritime Basin 300 million years ago. The carbonate host is an algal bank-coral reef that grew along an anticlinal fold in the older Cambrian-Ordovician rocks, which were folded by compressional forces dur ........

The Scotia Mine deposit covers a total strike length of approximately 4 kilometres, with some surface constraints in between, and a vertical distance of approximately 120 metres. All mining is from open-pit operations with an expected mine life of approximately 14 years.

The Scotia Mine mineral resources will be extracted using conventional load and haul (truck & shovel) mining methods as determined by optimized pit designs and life-of-mine schedules. Mining operations will be completed using an owner/operator of excavators, loaders, haul trucks and ancillary support equipment as well as some rental equipment. Equipment requirements have been determined based upon required production rates and haulage cycles.

The open-pits will be mined on 5-metre-high benches with double benching being utilized on the lower, which are primarily comprised of fair to good quality. Drilling and blasting are only required for 40 percent of the total material mined over the life of mine plan, which accounts for all of the hard rock to be mined from the pits. The remaining 60 percent is largely comprised of overburden and has been proved to be free digging material based on past operations and will not require blasting. Drilling and blasting will be performed using contract services.

The ultimate pit design was broken down into 6 phases to optimize development sequences and production requirements. Ore and waste tonnages, as well as Zn and Pb grades, provided by ea ........

- subscription is required.

- subscription is required.