The Bachelor-Desmaraisville Property is situated near the western limit of the Chibougamau-Chapais Greenstone Belt (CCGB). The following description is taken from Darling and Lafontaine (2011).

The mafic to felsic volcanic and volcanoclastic rocks of the Bachelor Lake area are part of the basal mafic dominated sequence referred to as the Volcanic Cycle I (Mueller et al., 1989). The Volcanic Cycle I formed between 2,730 Ma and 2,720 Ma (Mortensen, 1993), and is composed of massive, pillowed, and brecciated, tholeiitic basalt flows with local felsic and sedimentary units. The NVZ of the Abitibi Subprovince is interpreted as a diffuse arc passing laterally into a back-arc environment with numerous felsic and mafic-felsic edifices (Chown et al., 1992) and intra-arc sedimentary basins (Mueller et al., 1996).

The Bachelor-Desmaraisville Property is underlain by Archean volcanic rocks of the Obatogamau Formation in a poorly known and relatively poorly explored area of the AGB. Based on the absence of marker horizons and the paucity of outcrops, it is difficult to establish a well-defined rock sequence in the Coniagas-Bachelor Lake area (Doucet et al., 1998). The Obatogamau Formation includes mafic, intermediate, and felsic flows, and synvolcanic intrusive equivalents which are the host for the volcanogenic massive sulphide occurrences (e.g., Coniagas). The stratigraphic sequence includes the 280 m thick Coniagas Mine sequence composed of a mafic dominated volc ........

The orebody has very competent host rocks and low cost longhole stoping is a good choice for the mining method.

Once the stopes were identified, it was possible to determine the development needed to mine these stopes. The width of the mineralized zones varies considerably. Some are as narrow as 1.2 metres (four ft) and other are more than 9.0 metres (30 ft) wide in some locations. Accordingly, it was decided that the ore should be extracted using sublevel stoping and longhole blasting (54 mm – 63.5 mm [2 ¹/8 inches - 2 ½ inches] blast hole diameter). It should be noted that the dip and continuity of the zones, as well as the quality of the vein walls, also suggest that this method could be used successfully. To obtain a high degree of accuracy (and thereby minimize dilution), the ideal drill-hole length of approximately 13.5 metres (45 ft) was used to determine the sublevel spacings.

The veins will be entirely excavated on every sublevel. This means that the width of a sublevel could also exceed 9.0 metres (30 ft). The walls of the sublevels have to be inclined according to the dip of the vein to minimize dilution. The height, on the other hand, must be kept at 2.74 metres (9 ft) to allow the longhole drilling equipment to have the necessary manoeuvring space. Métanor decided that Cavo 310 mucking machines would be needed to handle all the ore during excavation of these sublevels.

The sublevels will be excavated via service raises between t ........

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