The YGP deposits can be considered Archean Lode Gold deposits within an orogenic gold environment. These deposit types are well documented throughout the Canadian Shield. Gold deposition typically post-dates peak metamorphism and can be accompanied by retrograde metamorphism in the greenschist to amphibolite grade lithologies. Favorable structural settings include areas of contrasting lithological competency which result in brittle and ductile shearing as well as quartz-carbonate veining as stockwork and lode gold quartz veining.

The Ormsby and Bruce Zone deposits are interpreted to be an amphibolite facies disseminated-replacement hypothermal to mesothermal Archean lode gold style deposit hosted by brecciated mafic metavolcanics. Metasomatic layering has resulted in very irregular banded to laminated textures with bands of alternating amphibolite, biotite and plagioclase pseudo-gneiss with abundant garnet. The two zones are located in the Ormsby and Discovery metavolcanic members respectively.

Gold is found associated with fine grained lamination parallel pyrrhotite bands within silicified amphibolite and within irregularsmoky grey quartz veins. Sulfide mineralization includes arsenopyrite, pyrite and trace amounts of galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite. Visible gold occurs as isolated grains proximal to sulfide clots in quartz veins or alone in quartz veins. Similar gold mineralization has been intersected in diamond drill core over the 2.5 km extent of the Ormsby and Discovery Member amphibolites.

Quartz veining is an important but minor component by volume of the mineralized zones. Silicification occurs as discrete, discontinuous light to dark gray quartz veins, pods, or disseminations. The quartz veins, usually only a few centimeters in width, have variable orientations typically striking 320º to 340º azimuth and dipping 10º to 50º to the southwest. Lesser veinlets dip to the northeast suggesting an asymmetric conjugate pair.

The Ormsby Zone generally strikes 0350 (+/- 150) and dips vertically. The Ormsby Zone varies from
75 to 150 m wide, has a strike length of approximately 1,300 m and is open at the current explored depth of 550 m below surface.

The Nicholas Lake Zone gold deposit is nterpreted to be an intrusion hosted shear zone deposit comprised of multiple auriferous sulfide bearing quartz veins and veinlets located within the granodiorite or within the Burwash sediments in close proximity of the granodiorite. The quartz veins are generally vertical but can dip as much as 80° to the north or south.

The Nicholas Lake Zone is approximately 125 m wide, has a strike length of 225 m and is open at the current explored depth of 450 m below surface. The zone trends approximately east-west and is sinusoidal in shape both vertically and horizontally.

The Goodwin Lake Zone deposit is interpreted to be a brittle shear zone quartz vein stockwork lode gold deposit within a gabbro. Vein widths on surface are generally <1.5 m but have been seen over 2 m with lengths of 10 to 15 m and locally >35 m. Quartz veins, typically a light smoky grey to blue grey to near white in color, are generally irregular in shape with sinuous and local boudinaged forms. Vein orientations vary greatly from flat to vertical and locally folded. Dips where indicated suggest north-northeast dips with more common strikes at 115° to 125° east o north and 10° to 20° east of north. Gangue minerals are minor amounts of chlorite, amphibole and biotite with weak carbonate.

Gold mineralization is seen principally within quartz veins and to a much lesser extent at vein contacts and thin halos. Gold appears to be essentially free in nature and occurs as very fine grained to local fine grained <1 mm blebs along vein fractures and contacts with sulfide or chlorite mineralization.

The Clan Lake Main Zone deposit is interpreted to be a brittle shear zone quartz vein stockwork lode gold deposit within intermediate volcanic flows and related tuff. Vein measurements indicate a great variation in strike and dip. Vein widths on surface are generally <1.0 m and some over 2 m with lengths of 8 to 12 m and locally >25 m. In core, veining can be seen as 5 cm to 3 m wide irregular veins with upper and lower contacts at sometimes at differing angles. Contacts are sharp with locally a very weakly foliated margin where semi-pervasive sericite alteration is noted. Gangue minerals are typically minor amounts of chlorite, amphibole and biotite with weak carbonate.

The quartz veins occur with moderate to abundant sericitization and silicification of vein haloes. Gold is found within smoky grey to grey-white quartz-carbonate veins, quartz breccias zones and within the vein alteration haloes. Gold occurs as very fine grained to local fine grained <1 mm blebs along vein fractures and contacts with sulfide or chlorite mineralization. The presence of visible gold is common with many gold assay results greater than 10 g/t. Pyrrhotite and arsenopyrite are the most abundant sulfides from trace to 12% with pyrite, galena and trace sphalerite and chalcopyrite. Arsenopyrite is a common halo component and replaces pyrrhotite locally. The Main Zone, open to depth and horizontally, currently measures 1,200 m long by 200 m wide with a north-west to southeast trend.

Mining will be a combination of traditional open pit truck and shovel operations at Ormsby, Bruce
Lake and Clan Lake, combined with underground operations at Nicholas Lake and Ormsby.

The orebody at Nicholas Lake is found in near vertical veins, which can be mined using a longhole stoping method. The mining thickness will range from 2 to 24 m wide, with an average of 4 m wide. Sill heights have been established at 20 m, which gives an open hangingwall of 23 m using a 3 m instope mining height. The length of stopes have been established using an allowable hydraulic radius (open stope area divided by perimeter) that depends on the rock quality and using an empirical design method. If the stopes were to remain open after mining, then sill pillars and dip pillars would be required to prevent collapse of the hangingwall, but at the planned depths of 20 to 290 m, significant ore would be left unmined. To minimize the remnant ore left unmined, backfilling stopes will reduce or eliminate the need for pillars.

Both operations will incorporate longhole stope mining methods using conventional drill and blast and cemented rock fill (CRF) for both mines.

Metallurgical test programs have demonstrated that there is a considerable amount of gold in the ore that can be recovered by gravity separation. In addition, these programs demonstrated that froth flotation would recover a very high percentage of the remaining gold contained in the gravity tailing, and that gold could be easily leached from flotation concentrates with the use of cyanide. These factors, plus the plant location and other external factors, led to the development of a flowsheet consisting of conventional three-stage crushing, followed by ball mill ore grinding with gravity recovery of coarse gold, rougher flotation, regrinding of the rougher flotation concentrate, cleaner flotation, CIL cyanide extraction of gold from the cleaner flotation concentrate and the SO2/air process for cyanide detoxification of the leach residue.

The concentrator has been designed to process 4,000 tpd in two parallel, equal capacity (2,000 t/d) processing lines from fine ore storage, through grinding, gravity gold recovery, and rougher froth flotation. The two parallel lines provide greater operating flexibility and ability to respond process issues that may arise at this remote mine location.

The ore processing begins with run-of-mine (RoM) ore dumped into a feed bin. From the feed bin the ore will flow to a vibrating grizzly feeder that will remove the -100 mm material from the feed to the primary jaw crusher to reduce the load on the crusher. The crusher will reduce the RoM ore to 80% finer than 100 mm. Grizzly undersize and crusher discharge will be screened on a triple deck vibrating screen. Oversize from the top two decks will be combined and feed the secondary cone crusher. The crushed material from the secondary crusher will return to the vibrating screen. The intermediate product that flows off the top of the third deck of the screen will feed the tertiary cone crusher. Discharge from the tertiary crusher will also recycle to the vibrating screen. The screen undersize from the bottom screen deck (9.5 mm) will be final product and will be conveyed to either of two 2,000 t fine ore silos.

Apron feeders will control the flow of ore from the fine ore storage silos onto feed belts that will feed the two parallel grinding circuits. The ball mills will operate in closed circuit with hydrocyclone classifiers to produce a primary grind of 80% passing120 µm, which will advance to the rougherscavenger flotation circuit. A portion of each hydrocyclone circuit underflow stream will be fed to a centrifugal gravity concentrator to recover coarse free gold. Concentrate from the centrifugal concentrators will be combined and fed to a shaking table for further upgrading in a secure gold room.

The hydrocyclone overflow streams from the grinding circuits will feed two, parallel, rougherscavenger flotation circuits to recover the remaining gold into a gold rougher flotation concentrate. Tank-type flotation cells have been selected for this plant. The concentrate streams from the rougher-scavenger flotation circuits will be combined to feed the concentrate regrind mill. Flotation tailings will flow to a thickener prior to discharge to the tailings management facility.

Rougher-scavenger concentrate will be reground in a Vertimill™ fine grinding mill to about 80% passing 40 µm prior to cleaner flotation. The cleaner flotation circuit will consist of three stages: first cleaner, cleaner scavenger, and second cleaner. The final product cleaner flotation concentrate will contain about 6 wt% of the overall plant feed, which will flow to the pre-leach thickener.

The thickened flotation concentrate will first flow to a pre-leach aeration tank. If necessary, the concentrate slurry can be aerated in this tank to passivate cyanide consuming constituents in the ore. After pre-leach aeration, the slurry will flow to the carbon-in-Leach (CIL) cyanidation circuit. Coarse granular activated carbon (GAC) will be added to the circuit to adsorb dissolved gold from the slurry. The GAC will be retained in each leach tank by inter stage carbon screens. Periodically, a portion of the slurry will be pumped to the next tank upstream to move the carbon in a countercurrent flow to the leach slurry. Carbon will be transferred from the first leach tank to the carbon stripping circuit. The leach slurry will flow from the last leach tank to the detox thickener. This thickener will reduce the volume of material needing detoxification and recover cyanide solution that will be recycled to the first leach tank.

The loaded carbon will be washed with acid to remove scale and then stripped with a hot cyanide solution to recover the adsorbed gold. The gold bearing strip solution will circulate through electrowinning cells where the gold will be plated onto steel wool. The steel wool and sludge from the electro-winning cells will be sent to the secure gold room. The shaking table concentrate and electro-winning products will be combined and smelted into doré in the secure gold room.

The thickened leach residue will flow to the SO2/air detoxification circuit that will consist of two agitated tanks operated in series. After detoxification, the slurry will flow to a storage tank and will periodically be pumped to a containment area within the tailings management facility.