The Hislop deposit is felsic intrusive related and located in a broad deformation zone within the Destor Porcupine Fault Zone (DPFZ). Numerous gold deposits occur in the vicinity of the DPFZ and related structures, such as the Pipestone Fault.

Some of the DPFZ gold deposits extend from surface to over 1,000 m below surface, and some are blind deposits, in that they do not reach bedrock surface. The top of the Holloway deposit, for example, is over 300 m below surface.

The following description of potential gold deposit types on the SAS Timmins area claims is from Reid (2003). Deposit types and exploration models can generally be characterized as one of three main types, although they tend to merge with each other at times. The deposit types may have more to do with the different host rocks than a genetic difference. Proximity to the main break(s), associated splays, presence of hydrothermal alteration, Timiskaming sediments or high level porphyries are common to all. The three main types are as follows:

•Green Carbonate Hosted: Nighthawk Lake, Aquarius, Stock, West Porphyry, and Glimmer all fall into this classification. Gold is generally present as free gold in quartz veins or with disseminated sulphides associated with small intrusive rocks or albitic alteration in completely carbonate altered ultramafic flows. Carbonate alteration is up to 200 m wide and can be traced for thousands of metres discontinuously on strike. The gold is often in crosscutting or conformable features. Timiskaming conglomerates are often proximal or part of the package.

•Felsic Intrusive Related: Ronnoco, Pominex, parts of the Taylor Shaft and Hislop are examples of this type. The intrusive rocks vary from feldspar (plus or minus quartz) porphyry in the west to more syenitic in the east. Mineralization is characterized by both thin crosscutting to stockwork quartz veins to disseminated sulphides to more contact skarns or hornfels, depending on host rock. Carbonate alteration is still quite common in the host rocks with silica, sericite, and hematite more within the intrusive.

• Mafic Volcanic Hosted: Holloway, Holt, and Hoyle Pond are examples. Ubiquitous carbonate alteration with iron carbonate, albite, silicification and sericite more proximal to ore. Quartz veins and/or albitized variolitic mafic flows are often central to the zone and often found near the mafic/ultramafic contact.

Two settings and styles of gold mineralization are present at the Hislop property. Gold occurs on the south side of the syenite dike complex in the carbonate and carbonate breccia rock which separates the syenite dikes from the less altered ultramafic volcanic rocks to the south side. Gold also occurs on the north contact of the syenite dike complex in quartz veinlets, stockworks and fractures in hematite altered and syenitized mafic metavolcanic rocks.

The rocks and the associated mineralization strike northwest-southeast and dip steeply north to vertically. Later cross faults trend both east-west and northeast to southwest, and are steeply to vertically dipping. Gold mineralization occurs along the length of the syenite dike complex, but the gold-bearing zones tend to be wider and higher in grade where associated with these cross faults.

Several mineralized zones occur on the Hislop property. The mineralized zones occur along a strike length of approximately 1,200 m, following the fault contact between mafic flows to the north and ultramafic rocks to the south. Gold is associated with the margins of feldspar porphyritic syenite dikes that have intruded the mafic and ultramafic rocks. The dikes are generally conformable to the contact between the mafic and ultramafic rocks striking west to northwest and dipping steeply to the north.

The mineralized areas have been called from west to east, the West Zone, Shaft Zone and the South Area.

The Hislop deposit has been designed as an open pit mine with a planned ore production rate of 1,500 tpd. The mining rate was selected as a supplement to the planned 1,000 tpd from the Holloway-Holt Project to be fed to the 3,000 tpd capacity Holt Mill.

The mining will be undertaken by mining contractors using conventional truck and shovel equipment, with haulage trucks in the 40 t capacity range and appropriately sized excavators for ore and waste. Overburden may be mined with larger units, but the ramps in the lower areas of the pit are designed for the 40 t class trucks.

The pit has been designed with six metre high benches. At the final walls, there will be 12 m (two benches) between each planned safety berm. The ramps will be 15 m wide for two lane traffic and 11 m wide for single lane traffic. The maximum ramp grade is 10% on the main ramps, with some short steeper sections for final mining of the lowest benches.

There are existing underground development workings and some stopes within the volume to be exploited by the open pit. The development workings include a shaft, ramps, development drifts, and some empty stopes.

Mining will progress through a number of underground workings, and the proposed plan is to drill ahead with the production drills in order to confirm the location of these voids. This drilling would be carried out at least one bench in advance to provide sufficient crown pillars and to permit time for mine planning. Blasting will be carried out to open these voids in such a manner as to allow filling of the voids with blasted rock. This will mitigate safety hazards for men or equipment in the pit, and provide for optimum separation of ore and waste and maximum recovery of ore. Additional mine planning will be required for those areas where the workings are expected to be encountered within the pit.

Hislop Mine was in production in the years 1990 to 1994 and again in 1999 to 2000. All of the production was trucked to the Stock Mill. The Stock Mill was a cyanide leach plant with a carbon-in-pulp (CIP) circuit which was used by SAS to process ores from a number of sources. The Stock Mill had a capacity of 1,300 tpd, depending on the hardness of ore.

The ore from the Hislop operation will be milled at the SAS Holt Mill. Ore will be crushed using contracted equipment at the Project site and transported by highway trucks to the Holt Mill.

Expansions in 1988 and 2001 increased the throughput to 2,500 tpd and 3,000 tpd, respectively. There is no crusher at the Holt Mill.

The grinding circuit consists of a 5.0 m diameter by 6.1 m long Allis Chalmers ball mill, converted to a SAG mill, a 4.0 m diameter by 5.5 m long Allis Chalmers ball mill, and a 3.6 m diameter by 4.9 m long tertiary ball mill. All are operating in series and in a closed circuit. The grinding circuit is controlled by an expert system and fuzzy logic.

The primary cyclone cluster consists of six 15 in. Krebs D15B cyclones. A secondary cyclone cluster consist of twelve 10 in. Krebs gMAX cyclones with an Outokumpu PSI- 200 online analyzer. The secondary cyclone cluster feeds a 90 ft. Eimco thickener. The thickener underflow feeds six CIL tanks. The tank system is conventional gravity flow for slurry with counter-current carbon advancement.

Precious metal stripping is performed in batch operations, advancing 2.7 tonnes of loaded carbon through a 4 ft. x 8 ft. Simplicity screen. Carbon is transferred to an adsorption column where a Zadra process is utilized as the gold elution method. Barren solution is circulated through two shell and tube heat exchangers and a 360 kW electric inline heater. The resulting pregnant solution is pumped from the solution tank to an
electrowinning cell. The gold precipitate is further refined using a 125 kW Inductotherm furnace and the doré bars are poured in a seven mould cascade arrangement. After stripping, the carbon is regenerated in a rotary kiln, quenched, screened and returned to the process. Carbon fines are collected in a tank, filtered in a Perrin press, and packaged for sale.