Gold-bearing quartz veins at the property are hosted by Ordovician metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks of the Catchers Pond Group. The style of veining, mineralization, alteration, host rock, and tectonism most closely resemble other mesothermal volcanic-hosted (greenstone belt) gold deposits throughout the world.

The most important and well-defined gold deposits include the Hammerdown, Rumbullion, Muddy Shag and Orion deposits, which all occur within the Hammerdown Deformation Zone (HDZ). The HDZ is described has a 100 m to 250 m wide structural corridor of strong ductile to brittle shearing hosted in the uppermost units of the Catchers Pond Group. The historic Lochinvar VMS base metal deposit also occurs in the HDZ along with the Golden Anchor gold veins and Beetle Pond VMS alteration zone.

Hammerdown-Rumbullion-Muddy Shag Vein System
The Hammerdown-Rumbullion-Muddy Shag-Wisteria gold systems consist of both a series of stacked gold veins as well as a zone of broadly disseminated to veinlet hosted gold and pyrite mineralization. Both styles of mineralization are hosted within an 1,800 m long shear zone informally referred to as the HDZ. The vein system is now considered to be a single deposit however, historical definition drilling has identified internal faults that have served to segregate the veins into several mineralized domains.

Geologically, the Hammerdown deposit is situated close to the contact of a Lower Ordovician mafic ........

Historically, the Hammerdown deposit has been mined with a small open pit and narrow vein underground mining (shrinkage and cut & fill mining methods). For this Feasibility study, the deposit has been developed purely as an open pit mine due to its relatively low cost and the near-surface nature of the deposit. The possibility of including underground mining was also evaluated but was ultimately excluded based on the overall expected economic outcome. Ore material will be drilled and blasted on 5 m benches and then excavated using a 2 m3 excavator, and 38 t trucks.

Ore will be delivered to a crusher/ore sorter located just South-East of the pit at a nominal rate of 1,200 t/d (426 kt/a) in order to provide 700 t/d (256 kt/a) to an offsite Mill. The average waste rejection rate of the ore sorter is expected to be approximately 40% for Vein material and 15% for the Wisteria zone. Waste materials will be drill and blasted on either 10m benches when in larger waste zones or on 5 m benches when near ore zones.

Waste will be mined using 8 m3 excavators and/or frontend loaders and 55 t trucks. This material will be contained within a Waste Storage Facility (WSF) located just South of the pit.

Mine Design
The ultimate pit design was split into three pushbacks to assist in smoothing production rates during operations. The approximate pushback shapes were selected from the generated pit shells as part of the pit optimization process which provide ........

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The Hammerdown crushing and sorting plant is designed for a processing rate of 1,200 t/d (438,000 t/a) producing concentrate for processing at Nugget Pond at a processing rate of 700 t/d (255,500 t/a).

This Feasibility Study considers a two-stage processing approach for the project.
• Run of mine ore will be pre-concentrated at the mine site using crushing and X-ray transmission (XRT) particle sorting equipment to reduce the daily throughput rate from 1,200 t/d to 700 t/d (i.e., the sorting process will reject roughly 40% of the mined mass as a low gold grade, low sulphide waste stream).
• The on-site sorting plant “concentrate” will be transported by road to the Nugget Pond Mill, an existing facility located approximately 140 km away on the Baie Verte Peninsula. The Nugget Pond gold plant utilizes grinding, thickening, carbon in pulp leaching (CIP), and refining to recover the gold into a doré product for sale. CIP residue slurry will be disposed of in the exist ........