The mineralization was divided into the following domains, separated by north-northwest fault, for the purpose of resource modelling.

Bear Creek Hanging-Wall Vein System/Domain, bounded by Ripper Fault to south and Cabin Fault to north. The Hanging-Wall vein is comprised predominantly of massive white sulphide poor silica with typical low- sulfidation epithermal textures, including recrystallization, coliform and crustiform banding, adularia bands, amethyst, etc.

Bear Creek Footwall Vein System/Domain, bounded by Cabin Fault to south and Talapoosa (South) Fault to the north. The Footwall vein is more sulphide rich, associated with a number of gangue phases including, red hematitic silica, chlorite and minor white to clear silica.

Main Zone Vein System/Domain bounded by Talapoosa (South) Fault to the south and Opal/Dyke Fault to the north.

The mineralization at both Dyke Adit and East Hill shows similarities in appearance and texture to that of the Hanging-Wall Zone at Bear Creek.

The modelling of veins and their bounding faults indicates that the general trend of all mineralization is around 115°, with two prominent dip angles:

- Steeply-dipping veins at approximately 70° south, for the Hanging-Wall and Footwall Zones at Bear Creek and for the eastern-most portion of the Main Zone.

- Shallowly-dipping veins, at approximately 20 to 40° south for the Dyke Adit, northwest part of the Main Zone (north) and the East Hill Vein. At least in the Main Zone, the flattening of vein dip could be the result of dilatational zones developed between the Talapoosa and Dyke Faults. In the case of the Dyke Adit and East Hill veins the attitude of the veining appears to parallel that of the contact between the hornblende andesite porphyry and the adjacent unit.

The mine design consists of three mining areas: the Main Pit, Dyke Adit, and the East Hill Pit. Under the current analysis, the Main Pit and Dyke Adit combine into one open pit instead of two separate pits. Approximately 90% of production is from the Main Pit area, with 7% from the Dyke Adit area, and the remaining 3% from the East Hill area.

The overall strip ratio is 1.47 units of waste to each unit of mineralized material production.

Waste rock storage areas will be located toward the northeast and southwest sides of the pit areas in as close proximity as possible to the mining areas so as to minimize waste haulage distances. These areas were sized to store a combined 90Mt of waste rock.

Industry standard surface mining techniques formed the basis of mine production. This Base Case Scenario used CAT 992 – 16.5 yd3 wheel loaders and CAT 777 100st trucks as production prime movers.

Gold and silver from the Talapoosa deposit will be recovered using industry standard heap leach cyanidation and Merrill Crowe gold precipitation techniques. Merrill Crowe processing of the pregnant solution was preferentially selected as the appropriate metallurgical extraction and recovery scenario given the grade of the material and the relatively high ratio of recovered gold to silver. Saleable doré product containing the recovered gold and silver will be shipped to an established refinery.

The mineralized material of economic value will be crushed to a P80 = 10 mesh, the final crushing step employing an HPGR because of its’ effectiveness at increasing fracture surfaces within a crushed product.

Crushed material will be drum agglomerated and conveyed to a radial stacker by which it is placed in 20 ft. lifts on the heap. Drip emitters will be used to distribute leach solution to the top of the lift at a rate of 0.004 gpm ft2. The heap and solution pond is desig ........