The Property is located on the eastern flank of the Osgood Mountains within the Basin and Range tectonic province of northern Nevada. The Granite Creek Mine occurs within a northeast-trending structural corridor known as the Getchell gold trend. Gold mineralization at the Property is described as a Carlin-type, sedimentary-rock hosted system.

The Property geology comprises a sequence of Cambrian to Ordovician sedimentary rocks that form part of the Osgood Mountain Terrane and the Osgood Mountains. Much of the Property comprises shales, hornfels sedimentary rocks and limestone interbeds of the Preble Formation, and an overlying (or juxtaposed), alternating sequence of limestone, shale, and dolomite with tuffaceous shale and intraformational conglomerates belonging to the Comus Formation. The Preble and Comus Formations have been folded into a broad north-plunging anticline and have been intruded by large Cretaceous granodiorite stocks, resulting in irregular contact metamorphism.

Gold mineralization at the Property is strongly structurally controlled, occurring at favorable sites within a fault network occurring around the eastern edge of the Osgood granodiorite and predominantly within Comus Formation host rocks. Mineralization is commonly associated with the decarbonatization of carbonate rocks and the introduction of silica, fine grained pyrite, arsenian pyrite, and remobilized carbon. Continuity of mineralization is highly variable, ranging from 40 ........

Mine plans for the resource areas were designed and planned using conventional open pit mining method for the low grade, widely distributed gold. The open pit areas are suitable for phased designs. Mechanized over-hand cut and fill underground mining method for the narrow, high grade deposits. This method was chosen for its ability to mine narrow vein deposits with little dilution and reducing labor cost. The underground area utilizes the previously mined development and includes new development to replace the current access which will be destroyed when the CX pit is mined.

Open Pit
The Granite Creek Mine Project will employ conventional open pit mining techniques using front end loaders and rear dump rigid frame haul trucks. Open pit material will be treated using heap leach or CIL techniques, depending on grade and recovery of the material being processed. The mine plan is designed to deliver an average of 8,500 tonnes of high-grade heap leach material per day from the open pit to the crusher which will then be stacked on the heap leach pad, and 3,000 tonnes per day of CIL material to the mill. The average daily waste production rate over the life of the mine is 80,700 tonnes per day. Waste material would be either placed on waste rock storage facilities (WRSF) or as backfill in previously mined open pits. There are three distinct open pit production areas on the project: B pit, CX pit, and Mag pit. The CX and Mag pits were each designed with three phases, ........

- subscription is required.

Heap Leach Process Description
The Granite Creek Mine Project would employ open pit mining with a conventional heap leach system on a 365 day per year 24 hour per day basis. The heap leach will use crushed ROM material at a nominal size of 2 inches (51 mm). The crushed material would be agglomerated with lime and cement, as necessary, and transported to the heap leach via conveyor belt.

The heap leach would consist of a suitable area lined with a containment system, typically a linear lowdensity polyethylene (LLDPE) liner with an over liner of sized material to facilitate drainage and to protect the liner during initial stacking. Drainage pipes would be placed within this over liner to conduct the leach solution to the centralized solution collection ponds. The crushed material would be stacked in lifts on the lined pad by a radial stacker. The stacker would be fed by a series of jump or grasshopper conveyors that would be fed from the agglomeration. The lifts are targ ........