Deposit Types
The Marban Project property lies within the Malartic mining camp and is in close proximity to the Val-d’Or camp. These mining areas have a combined historic production of over 25 million ounces of gold and continue to produce gold today; historic production has been primarily from underground mines, although significant open-pit production is evident at the present time. The Malartic mining area is noted for its variety of gold occurrences, including such major gold deposits as the East-Malartic, Camflo-Malartic Hygrade, Malartic Gold Fields, Barnat-Sladen, and Canadian Malartic.

Gold mineralization from these mining districts have been classified as mesothermal or late-orogenic lode deposits. The mineralization is associated with regional structural zones(e.g. the Cadillac-Larder Lake tectonic zone), regional drag folds, and structural splays, as well as with syn to late-tectonic intrusive rocks. The different styles of mineralization range from disseminated-sulfide deposits to quartz tourmaline gold-bearing veins and vein stockwork zones. Deposits range from early to late-tectonic in age.

The Marban Project is similar in many respects to mines and deposits in the surrounding area. The Norbenite and Marbanite shears are major structures that range from tens to hundreds of metres in width. The presence of lamprophyre intrusions within or adjacent to these structural corridors is suggestive of a deeply rooted deformation system. These shear zones are affected by at least two major deformation episodes that caused both open and very tight folding. The Marbanite shear hosts mineralization at Marban, which is a multi-folded mesothermal-type deposit. The high-grade Gold Hawk veins also occur within this shear corridor. There are numerous gold occurrences encountered between Marban and Gold Hawk, as well as along strike, including some at the Malartic Hygrade mine.

The Kierens and Norlartic mineralization is confined to the Norbenite shear and is associated with intermediate dikes that host auriferous stockworks. This shear may also host the adjacent Kiena and Goldex mines. An additional style of mineralization occurs as gold-bearing quartz-tourmaline stockworks within larger intrusions, such as the North-North granodiorite. There are a number of styles of mineralization identified at the Marban property, including gold associated with: (1) sheared basalts; (2) quartz-pyrite veinlets within or adjacent to dioritic dikes; (3) quartz-tourmaline stockwork veinlets within granodiortic intrusions; (4) quartz + chalcopyrite veins; and (5) strongly altered felsic dikes. Gold mineralization hosted within shear zones in basaltic rocks is the most important type, and it is found at the Marban and North Zone deposits as well as at Marban Northeast and in the northwest-trending portion of the Marbenite shear zone. This style of mineralization is accompanied in various degrees by silicification, albitization, quartz-carbonate veinlets, and/or disseminated pyrite and pyrrhotite.

Mineralization associated with dioritic dikes dominates the Kierens and Norlartic deposits, although this style also occurs at the North Zone and locally in other deposit areas. Quartz-tourmaline mineralization is best exemplified at the North-North Zone, with similar mineralization also intersected in granodiorite that occurs in the hanging wall portion of the Marban deposit. The Gold Hawk zone is unique in that its gold mineralization, which can be quite high grade, is associated with quartz veins (as opposed to veinlets). The final style of gold mineralization at the Marban Project is found in the hanging wall of the Marban deposit and also at Marban Northeast; it is characteristically associated with highly altered (albitized and silicified) felsic dikes and disseminated pyrite with or without quartz-pyrite veins.

Mineralization
The Marban Project property is the site of three former gold producers–the Kierens, Norlartic, and Marban mines–that collectively produced almost 600,000 ounces of gold (Norlartic Mines and Aur reports, as well as MRNQ assessment files). Three major shear zones have been traced across the property; from north to south, these are the North, Norbenite, and Marbanite shears. Six sub-parallel gold-mineralized horizons are recognized; from northeast to southwest these include the North-North Zone, the North Zone (along the North shear), the Norlartic Main and Kierens zones (within the Norbenite shear), and the Gold Hawk horizon and the Marban zone (within the Marbanite shear). This report focuses on resource estimates of the Marban, Kierens, and Norlartic deposits.

Marban deposit
The Marban mine is located on the Marban claim group, lies to the south and east of the Kierens and Norlartic mines, and is situated within the Marbanite shear zone. The Marban deposit was discovered after a drilling program that followed-up on the discovery of glacially transported gold-mineralized boulders. Marbenor Malartic Mines Ltd. drilled 96 holes that resulted in the discovery of two gold-bearing zones, referred to as the Marban North and Marban South zones.

Gold mineralization is hosted primarily in the Mine Sequence basalts within east-westoriented shear zones that dip 45 to 70° to the north and are from 10 to over 70 metres wide.

The mineralization consists of gold-bearing pyrite and pyrrhotite, with free gold occurring locally. The timing of the mineralization seems to be syn- to post-tectonic, based on the morphology of the pyrite crystals, and was probably a continuous event (Renou, 2007). The pyrite and pyrrhotite occur as finegrained euhedral clusters elongated along shear planes, but pyrite also can be coarse-grained and disseminated in the host rocks.

Norlartic deposit
The Norlartic mineralization occurs primarily at the Main zone. Additional mineralization has been defined below and to the east of the old workings (Stuart and Martin, 1988). The Main zone consists of a one-metre-wide felsic sill or dike that occurs within a large, sheared envelope of mafic rocks in the core of the Norbenite shear. Above the 500 level of the Norlartic mine, the main sill seems to change into a swarm of smaller dikes in “horse tail” style. Gold is usually directly associated with the intrusion(s). The intermediate intrusive and mafic volcanic rocks in the Main zone have been strongly silicified and pyritized and have undergone intense brittle fracturing and quartz-carbonate-pyrite vein injection. Economic gold concentrations in the Main zone are found in quartz-calcite-pyrite vein stockworks that occur in closely spaced lenticular intermediate intrusions.

Kierens deposit
Stuart and Martin (1986) have documented that gold mineralization at Kierens is primarily associated with disseminated and fracture-controlled pyrite and occurs in a strongly silicified and carbonatized zone that ranges in thickness from three to 30 metres. The alteration zone generally occupies the central portion of the Norbenite shear and is broadly conformable with it. The alteration zone affects sheared ultramafic rocks, more massive mafic units, and felsic intrusions that appear as boudins and dislocated lenses that are difficult to correlate vertically. The main control on gold mineralization within the shear zone appears to be a westerly plunging drag fold. Gold is concentrated in the hinge zone of this fold structure, which may have acted as a trap for gold-bearing hydrothermal fluids (Stuart and Martin, 1986).

The boundaries of the gold zone at Kierens define the area within which continuously anomalous gold concentrations occur, and outside of which anomalous gold values are rare and discontinuous. The gold zone is approximately conformable with the Norbenite shear zone as a whole, but it clearly transects the individual lithologic units within the shear zone. Gold does not seem to be preferentially associated with any one of the felsic intrusions, mafic units,

Open pit mine designs, mine production schedules, mine capital and operating costs have been developed for the Marban and Kierens-Norlartic (KN) deposits at a scoping level of engineering.

The open pit operations are designed for approximately fifteen years of operation. Mine planning is based on conventional open pit methods suited for the project location and local site requirements.

Ultimate pit limits are split up into phases or push backs to target higher economic margin material earlier in the mine life. The Marban deposit is split into four phases, and the KN deposit is split into six phases, two for Kierens, two for Norlartic, one for North Zone and one for Gold Hawk. Pit designs are configured on 5 m bench heights, with 8 to 9 m wide berms placed every four benches, or quadruple benching. Bench face angles, and subsequent inter-ramp angles, are varied based on prescribed geotechnical zones.

The mill will be fed with material from the pit at an average rate of 4.0 Mtpa (11ktpd). Cut-off grade optimization is employed, which feeds a low-grade stockpile south of the Marban deposit, which is planned to be rehandled as feed to the mill in the later years of the mine life. Overburden, for use upon mine closure, will be placed in a stockpile directly north of the Marban pit. Waste rock will be placed in stockpiles adjacent to all pits. Waste rock will also be used for construction of the tailings and water management pond northwest of the deposits.

Mining operations will be based on 365 operating days per year with two 12-hour shifts per day.An allowance of 10 days of no mine production has been built into the mine schedule to allow for adverse weather conditions.

The mining fleet will include diesel-powered down the hole (DTH) drills with 165 mm bit size for production drilling, diesel-powered reverse circulation (RC) drills for bench-scale grade control drilling, 12-m3 bucket size diesel-hydraulic excavators and 13-m3 bucket sized wheel loaders for production loading, 91-t payload rigid-frame haul trucks and 36-t articulated trucks for production hauling, plus ancillary and service equipment to support the mining operations.In-pit dewatering systems will be established for each pit. All surface water and precipitation in the pits will be handled by submersible pumps.

The mine equipment fleet is planned to be purchased via a lease financing arrangement. Maintenance on mine equipment will be performed in the field with major repairs to mobile equipment in the shops located near the plant facilities.

Primary Crushing and Stockpiling
Material is hauled from the mine and direct tipped into to the crusher feed hopper. Material from the feed hopper is crushed by a primary jaw crusher mounted on a modular crushing mobile unit, which also includes a feeder and vibrating grizzly screen.

A fixed rock breaker is utilised to break oversize rocks at the feed to the jaw crusher. The crushed material is conveyed to a covered stockpile that provides approximately 16 hours of live storage. The residence time of the stockpile permits opportunity to perform maintenance on the crushing circuit without affecting the process plant.

Crushed material is withdrawn from the stockpile by two apron feeders that discharge onto the SAG mill feed conveyor. Pebbles from the SAG mill are fed to a recycle circuit via conveyor sand discharged on the SAG mill feed conveyor to recycle to the SAG mill.

Grinding Circuit
The grinding circuit consists of a SAG mill followed by a ball mill in closed circuit with hydrocyclones. The SAG mill slurry discharges through a trommel where the pebbles are screened and recycled to the SAG mill via conveyors. Trommel undersize discharges into the cyclone feed pumpbox. The ball mill is fed by cyclone underflow.

The ball mill discharges through a trommel and the oversize is screened out and discharged to a scats bunker. Trommel undersize discharges into the cyclone feed pumpbox. The gravity tailings discharge to the cyclone pumpbox.

Water is added to the cyclone feed pumpbox to obtain the required cyclone feed density. This hopper also has a dedicated pump to feed the gravity circuit scalping screen. Cyclone overflow gravitates over the trash screen. Trash screen oversize is collected in a bunker and periodically removed.Trash screen undersize reports to the leach/CIL circuit.

The process design is comprised of the following:
• primary and secondary crushing of run-of-mine (ROM) material
• a covered crushed material stockpile to provide buffer capacity for the process plant
• SAG mill with trommel screen followed by a ball mill with cyclone classification
• gravity recovery of ball mill discharge by one semi-batch centrifugal gravity concentrator, followed by intensive cyanidation of the gravity concentrate and electrowinning of the pregnant leach solution.
• trash screening
• Pre-aeration, leach and carbon in leach (CIL) adsorption
• acid washing of loaded carbon and Anglo-American Research Laboratory (AARL) type elution followed by electrowinning and smelting to produce doré
• carbon regeneration
• cyanide destruction of tailings using SO2 air process
• carbon screening, tailings thickening and disposal

Gravity Circuit
The gravity circuit includes centrifugal concentration with a feed scalpi ........