United States
USA - Kensington
At Kensington we control a large land position of over 6,200 acres of US federal and Alaska state claims. The Kensington ore deposits consists of multiple, mesothermal gold-bearing quartz, carbonate, pyrite vein swarms and discrete quartz-pyrite veins, hosted in the Cretaceous Jualin diorite. The gold deposits at Kensington are similar in style to other major mesothermal gold camps around the world. A major attribute of these types of systems is their high-grade nature, large vertical extent and multiple occurrences in the same district – all of which are evident at Kensington.
All of the current mineral resources and reserves occur in just the Kensington and Horrible vein clusters. Other major systems are Elmira, Jualin and the new Kimberly system. We believe Elmira and Horrible have high potential to expand into major new ore deposits. The Jualin system, consisting of four, separate gold occurrences, occurs immediately to the west of the mill facilities. The Kimberly structure is a new gold-bearing vein system exposed in the decline from the mill to the Kensington mine. We drilled the first holes at Kimberly in 2009 and 8 of 14 phase one core holes intersected very significant gold mineralization. Kimberly is not exposed on surface, consists of at least two structures and is open at depth and on strike. These characteristics suggest that Kimberly may also develop into a major new gold system at Kensington and bodes well future such, blind discoveries in this district. Our plans for 2010 are to test the extension of Horrible and to follow-up our good results from 2009 at Kimberly with a budget of $2.0 million in 2010.
With Kensington now in production, the Company started exploration in the second quarter of 2010. The main focus of this work was on the Horrible structure, a prominent, gold-bearing quartz vein and vein swarm situated about 650 meters west of the current Kensington mining area. A total of 9,941 feet (3,030 meters) of core drilling was completed at Horrible in the second quarter. Drilling has cut multiple quartz-vein structures down-dip and on-strike of the known zone. Drilling will continue on Horrible and other nearby targets in the third quarter.
USA - Rochester
Late in the second quarter 2010, drilling commenced on new targets between the Rochester and Packard mines. Over 3,700 feet of angled reverse circulation drilling was completed on new targets in the NE-trending structural corridor between the two mines. Numerous geochemical anomalies have been defined in this belt and the Company believes there is good potential to add to the total mineral resource and reserves in this area. As of December 31, 2009, Rochester had 25,884,000 ounces of silver and 233,000 ounces of gold in proven and probable reserves.
