Gold and silver at the Bruner property occur within narrow quartz + adularia +/- pyrite veins and veinlets, along fractures, and in disseminations that are manifested as sheeted/stockwork zones, vein swarms, and rare 0.3-2 meter wide veins, hosted by high-silica rhyolite flow domes and encasing and surrounding volcaniclastic units that overlie a mostly unaltered andesite base. The mineralization style is classified as low-sulfidation epithermal (LSE) with occasionally highgrade gold+quartz+adularia veins occurring within broad zones of hydrothermal alteration containing low-grade gold and silver.

Three zones of gold-silver mineralization have been outlined by drilling: the Historic Resource Area, and the Paymaster zone, which are located on patented mining claims, and the Penelas Zone, including both the historic Penelas Mine and the relatively newly discovered Penelas East area, which is located entirely on unpatented mining claims. All three areas have seen limited mining activity and production in the past, largely by selective underground methods.

Outcrop in the Historic Resource Area is dominated by moderately (30-55°) north-dipping biotite-rich Tbl rocks with intruding rhyolite dikes (Tr1) and rare occurrences of rhyolite tuffisite dikes (Ttd) and mafic intrusive rocks (Tba).

Structural measurements from the Historic Resource Area show that veins, faults, and joints are consistently north-trending and steeply-dipping and display normal ........

The mining operation is assumed to be a conventional open pit mine, with drill and blast rock breakage and truck and loader materials handling.

The mine production schedule was based on an average of 7,500 tonnes/day delivered to the crusher and lower grade ores being placed directly on the heap leach pad as run of mine (ROM) ore. WHA opted to take the mineralized material between 0.117 and 0.192 gold equivalent and treat it as run of mine material, that is, not crush it prior to stacking on the pads. The pits will be mined sequentially beginning at the Paymaster pit and progressing southeasterly to the HRA and Penelas pits. The production schedule was constrained to produce a constant feed of mineralized material to the crusher and conveyor loading onto the heap leach pad. ROM ores will be stacked on the heap leach pad without crushing. The ratio of ROM ore to crushed ore may vary due to gold price, ore grade, crushing costs, and recovery projections. Based on the high leachability of the mineral deposits, it is probable that a high percentage of the ore will be placed as ROM ore. Some stockpiling of higher grade material may be required to balance the crusher feed rate.

No site specific geotechnical studies have been undertaken to date, other than the kinematic structural analysis completed by Dering (2014), and therefore pit slopes were based on reasonable assumptions and observation of nearby operating surface mines. An overall pit slope of 55° was ........

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Based on proximity to surface, average grade and the results from preliminary metallurgical test work, the recovery methods anticipated to be most appropriate for the Bruner Gold Project are cyanide heap leach with carbon adsorption. A zinc precipitation (Merrill-Crowe) recovery process was not deemed to be needed due to the low silver recovery observed in the metallurgical testing results.

The process will use heap leaching with a standard “adsorption-desorption-recovery” (ADR) process for recovering the solubilized gold (and silver) from the leach solutions. As shown in Process Flow Sheet, option A would be to install a jaw crusher to crush the ore to a nominal 4-inch size prior to loading it onto the heap pad; option B would be to haul “run-of-mine” ore directly to the heap. The cyanide solution from the Barren Pond is percolated through the heap to create the Pregnant Leach Solution (PLS) that is collected at the bottom of the heap. The PLS is then pumped through activa ........