Elder Creek Mine area

Site Name

Primary: Elder Creek Mine area
Secondary: Shoshone

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Commodity

Primary: Gold
Tertiary: Arsenic
Tertiary: Mercury
Tertiary: Antimony

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Location

State: Nevada
County: Lander
District: Bullion District

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Land Status

Land ownership: BLM Administrative Area
Note: the land ownership field only identifies whether the area the mine is in is generally on public lands like Forest Service or BLM land, or if it is in an area that is generally private property. It does not definitively identify property status, nor does it indicate claim status or whether an area is open to prospecting. Always respect private property.
Administrative Organization: Battle Mountain Administrative District of the Bureau of Land Management

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Holdings

Not available

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Workings

Not available

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Ownership

Owner Name: Minterra Resource Corp.
Info Year: 2006

Owner Name: Mill City Gold Corp.
Info Year: 2006

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Production

Not available

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Deposit

Record Type: Site
Operation Category: Past Producer
Deposit Type: sediment-hosted gold
Operation Type: Surface
Year First Production: 1989
Year Last Production: 1990
Discovery Year: 1983
Years of Production:
Organization:
Significant: Y
Deposit Size: S

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Physiography

Not available

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Mineral Deposit Model

Model Name: Sediment-hosted Au

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Orebody

Form: irregular

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Structure

Type: R
Description: Roberts Mountains thrust fault

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Alterations

Alteration Type: L
Alteration Text: hydrothermal alteration, silicification

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Rocks

Name: Limestone
Role: Host
Description: silty
Age Type: Host Rock
Age Young: Early Devonian
Age Old: Wenlock

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Analytical Data

Not available

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Materials

Ore: Gold

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Comments

Comment (Development): The Elder Creek project was discovered in 1983 by MAPCO Minerals Corporation (MAPCO) during an intensive helicopter reconnaissance program. Subsequent follow-up work indicated significant gold mineralization related to several small exposures of an aplitic latite dike. Samples of gray quartzite in the vicinity of the dike were also very anomalous. On June 1, 1988, a joint venture was formed between NERCO and Alta Gold Company, which became the Alta-NERCO Joint Venture, to further explore the Elder Creek property and other properties within the Shoshone Range. The operator of the Elder Creek Project was Alta Gold. Alta Gold began leaching at the site in 1989 and operated continuously until January 4, 1991. In January 1991, Elder Creek Mine initiated permanent cessation of mining operations. However, operation of the leach pad and recovery of precious metals continued through 1992. On July 1, 1991, Alta Gold acquired NERCO?s interest in the Elder Creek Project becoming sole owner. Under Alta Gold ownership, seasonal leaching took place during the summers of 1991 and 1992. The Elder Creek property was subsequently acquired by Mill City Gold Corp., who optioned it to Minterra Resource Corp. which is now drilling the property (2006). Minterra's first test of that deep target was abandoned due to difficult drilling. A second hole was drilled to 1,860 feet before reaching the limit for the reverse circulation rig. The company intends to deepen that hole with a core rig. Two earlier holes in the area, one to the west and the other to the east, encountered the lower plate at 2,450 feet and 2,200 feet, respectively on the Elder Creek property. The recent Minterra hole found hydrothermal alteration such as would be expected proximal to a gold deposit in that setting. 2006 drilling program was designed to test the significance of that alteration. Minterra is planning to drill up to four additional holes in this first phase on the Elder Creek property.

Comment (Economic Factors): In 1989, the property contained a reported 91,500 ounces of gold. After a short period of production, in 1990 the property contained a reported 1.5 million tons of material grading 0.041 ounces of gold per ton for a total contained 61,500 ounces of gold.

Comment (Geology): The Shoshone Range is dominantly underlain by Paleozoic strata made up of Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian rocks that occur as a complex stack of thrust slices in the upper plate of the Roberts Mountains thrust. Lower plate carbonate rocks are exposed as windows through upper plate both northwest and southeast of the Elder Creek property. Exposures on the property are of cherts, argillites, and quartzites of the Ordovician Valmy Formation. These have been thrust over Devonian carbonate rocks during the Mississippian Antler Orogeny. Both upper and lower plate rocks were then intruded by Tertiary dikes following high angle structures which feed into sills along thrust and bedding planes.

Comment (Identification): This property contains all pertinent material from earlier MRDS record #RE00281 plus additional material.

Comment (Location): The Elder Creek Mine is located in the northern part of the Shoshone Mountains of central Nevada.

Comment (Workings): Past production from small open pit; current drilling,

Comment (Commodity): Ore Materials: gold

Comment (Deposit): The near surface resource at Elder Creek is a guide to and possibly indicative of a high-grade gold deposit in lower plate carbonate rock. The Elder Creek property has potential for high-grade gold along exposed structures where they intersect lower plate rocks at depth. Phase 1 drilling intersected the lower plate Roberts Mountains Formation at a depth of 2,174 feet in the core tail in hole EC-2. The Roberts Mountains Formation in EC-2 is a highly brecciated, thinly-bedded silty limestone with pervasive carbon veining, silicification, and decalcification. EC-2 intersected weakly anomalous gold (up to .101 ppm (grams/ton) gold) and anomalous trace elements (up to 508 ppm aresenic, 33 ppm antimony, 1.08 ppm mercury). These assay results are consistent with the alteration and mineralization halo expected around a sediment-hosted (Cortez Hills type) gold deposit. Historic surface data gathered during the Phase 1 drilling program indicated that the part of the historic Elder Creek pit which was mined for higher gold grades is about 400 to 600 feet northeast of the Phase 1 drill site. Two drill holes are planned in the second phase program to test the lower plate rocks beneath this historic high-grade zone. Phase 2 drilling was scheduled for August 2006.

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References

Reference (Deposit): Alta Gold Company, 1989, Environmental Assessment for the Alta Gold Company Elder Creek.

Reference (Deposit): NBMG, 1994, MI-1993

Reference (Deposit): NBMG, 1992, The Nevada Mineral Industry - 1991, NBMG Special Publication MI-1991.

Reference (Deposit): BLM, 2006, Elder Creek Mine Closure Project Environmental Assessment.

Reference (Deposit): http://www.millcityinternational.com/
URL: http://www.millcityinternational.com/

Reference (Deposit): Long, K.R., DeYoung, J.H., Jr., and Ludington, S.D., 1998, Database of significant deposits of gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc in the United States; Part A, Database description and analysis; part B, Digital database: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 98-206, 33 p., one 3.5 inch diskette.

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Nevada Gold

Nevada has a total of 368 distinct gold districts. Of the of those, just 36 are major producers with production and/or reserves of over 1,000,000 ounces, 49 have production and/or reserves of over 100,000 ounces, with the rest having less than 100,000 ounces. Read more: Gold Districts of Nevada.