The intrusive complex at La Verde is dominated by quartz diorite, which is exposed along an east-west-trending arcuate mountain range roughly 5.5 km long, 1 km wide, and up to 290 m above the surrounding blanket of Quaternary sediments.

The East Hill contains four main copper mineralized zones. Three of these zones (#1, #3, and #4) are hosted within altered and brecciated quartz diorite in close proximity to dykes and stocks of quartz-feldspar porphyry, while the fourth zone (#2) is hosted largely within unbrecciated quartz-feldspar porphyry. All four mineralized zones form a roughly circular pattern on the western half of the East Hill, in a plan view. Brecciation mechanisms on the East Hill vary from mechanical milling to hydrothermal cracking. Alteration tends to be fairly tightly restricted to zones of brecciation, except in the case of large-scale calcium-sodium metasomatism within quartz diorite adjacent to quartz-feldspar porphyry. Potassic feldspar alteration was noted in drillholes located on the north side of the East Hill.

The West Hill is characterized by approximately east-west trending bands of phyllic / propylitic alteration with associated pyrite-chalcopyrite ±arsenopyrite pyrrhotite veining at the contact between quartz diorite porphyry and equigranular quartz diorite. The lateral extent of these mineralized east-west striking veins forms a north-northeast south-southwest trending roughly elliptical shaped mineralized body, in a plan vie ........

The La Verde project lends itself to a conventional truck and shovel open pit mining method.

The conceptual mining schedule calls for ex-pit mining rates of Ktonne/day during Year 1, 264 Ktonne/day from Year 2 to 4, and an average of 296 Ktonne/day from Year 5 to 18.

For this size of mining operation and the selectivity required in this type of deposit, large size mining equipment is proposed. Both productivities and costs have been estimated on the following operational scheme:
• Drilling and Blasting on 15 m benches.
• Primary loading with rope and hydraulic shovels.
• Use of 225 tonnes haul trucks.
Use of electric equipment (primary drills and rope shovels) is considered.

The open pits were scheduled using the Milawa algorithm which is part of the Whittle Four-X package. Highlights of the selected mining schedule are:
• The selected schedule calls for 21 years of mining activity; in Year -1, 65 million tonnes are pre-stripped, open pit mining occurs between Year 1 and Year 19, and stockpile reclaiming in Years 20 and 21.
• Metal prices and mill recoveries are the same as those used for NSR calculation and pit optimization.

- subscription is required.

- subscription is required.

- subscription is required.