Toiyabe Pediment Project ¹

The Toiyabe Pediment property is located in east-central Lander County approximately 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of the town of Battle Mountain, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of the Pipeline gold deposit and approximately 12 miles (19 kilometers) southwest of the Cortez Hills gold deposit, and includes 119 unpatented claims each covering an area of 1,007.4 hectares.  The target sought at Toiyabe Pediment is the Carlin or sediment hosted gold deposits.

Accessibility Climate, Local Resources and Infrastructure

Access to the property is by an unmade road which extends southwestwardly from the old road 21, which crosses the pediment just south of the Cortez Hills Mine. The property is most easily reached by vehicle from the Cortez/Pipeline road extending south from Highway 80 through Beowawe and Crescent Valley. Power is available near the property. Supplies and services must be obtained from towns of Winnemucca, Elko or Battle Mountain to the north.

The property is generally covered by sagebrush and grass but at higher elevations, outside the property boundary, the hills may include juniper bushes and pinyon pines. The climate is typical of Northern Nevada with cool to cold temperatures during the winter, with occasional moderate snowfalls, and are warm during the summer with cool nights. The climate is favorable for year-round mining and exploration may be done from May through November.

A highly trained mining-industrial workforce is available throughout north-central Nevada. Power for a mine/mill complex could be brought in from the various mining locations in the region, such as Cortez Hills or the Pipeline area. Water is generally not available on the surface, but can be obtained from BLM wells and other sources at various locations near the property. Sufficient flat areas are present on or near the property for potential processing plant sites, tailings storage areas, waste disposal areas and leach pads.

History

As summarized from Harrington (2007) The Cortez Mining District straddles the boundary between Lander and Eureka Counties in north-central Nevada. Silver was discovered in the Cortez District (Eureka County) in the early 1880s. Mining began there in 1863 and continued until 1903, but from 1903 until 1958, mining and exploration were sporadic.

In 1960, geochemical exploration by the U.S. Geological Service (USGS) indicated anomalous values of lead, molybdenum, silver, zinc, arsenic, bismuth and manganese in the western portion of the Cortez District in Lander County. In 1966, this led to the discovery of gold in silicified zones in Roberts Mountains Formation rocks on the western slope of the Cortez Mountains in the present Buckhorn mine area. More detailed exploration was carried out and, in 1969, open-pit mining commenced at the Cortez mine, which produced 166,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 0.285 ounces of gold per ton in its first year of operation.

Since that time, new discoveries have included the Gold Acres mine, Cortez Hills, Pipeline and South Pipeline, Horse Canyon and the Pediment deposits. The original Cortez joint venture (Placer Dome and Kennecott) has been operated by Barrick Gold Corporation.

The Toiyabe mine, which lies on a claim block adjacent to the north of the Toy claims, was a small gold mining and heap leaching operation that was in production from 1987-1991 by Inland Gold & Silver Corporation. The mine processed approximately 2,300,000 tons of rock and produced approximately 89,000 oz of gold from three small pits. The Saddle deposit of the Toiyabe mine, is a sediment-hosted, structurally controlled gold deposit primarily hosted by the Roberts Mountain formation but with the Roberts Mountain Thrust as the major control on the gold mineralization. The old Toiyabe mine, now believed owed by the Cortez Joint Venture (originally Placer Dome/Kennecott and now Barrick Gold Corp.) has been abandoned and reclaimed.

Property History

History of the property is imperfectly known, as no assessment reports need to be filed under US Mining Law. However, Technical Reports filed for the TSXV by others provide a brief recent history.

Claims within the general area have been held by Homestake Mining (1980-81), Cyprus (1987- 88), Brancote Holdings (1990-94), Inland Gold and Silver, and Placer Dome (1996-97). Santa Fe Minerals apparently worked in a joint venture with Inland Gold and Silver and drilled a number of holes, mainly on existing roads. Cypress drilled to the east of the target zone. The activities of Placer Dome are unknown but there is no evidence of any road building or drilling in the BLM records.  In 2002, Genesis Gold (the present property vendor) held 32 claims covering the target area.  In 2004, at least part the property was held by Minterra Resource Corp., a TSXV listed public company active in many parts of Nevada. The large property (391 Claims) was optioned to Minterra by Carl Pescio. Minterra completed a soil-sampling program, geophysical compilation and drilled five shallow diamond drill-holes to the north of the present claims, none of which reached bedrock, and then allowed the option to lapse.

Regional Geology

The following description of regional and local geology is adapted from Cavey and Cherrywell (2005), which report was for the ACM property about 6 miles north in suspected similar package of rocks (note that although geology is complex in the Cortez area, rock units are well known and relatively consistent over short distances. North-Central Nevada is underlain by Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary and igneous rocks. Two distinct depositional environments are evident in the Paleozoic units. These are known as the Upper and Lower plate assemblages of the Roberts Mountain Thrust, a major structural feature traced over much of Northern Nevada.

The Upper Plate assemblage above the Roberts Mountain thrust consists of deep water siliceous sedimentary and minor volcanic rocks. The lower plate is almost entirely composed of shallow marine carbonates. During the Antler orogeny the Upper Plate assemblage was transported over top of the lower plate units along the Thrust, which was also folded and upwarped during this time. Intrusion of granitic rocks during the Mesozoic Era caused localized doming throughout the region. This doming accentuated the Shoshone Fold Belt, a series of northeast trending broad amplitude folds with widths up to seven miles.

Tertiary events included the intrusion of quartz porphyry dykes, quartz latite and rhyolitic tuffs (Caetano tuffs), extensive basaltic volcanism, and subsequent deep erosion which favoured paleo-highs along the apex of regional fold structures. This resulted in structural “windows” in the upper plate units through which lower plate rocks are exposed. A later extensional tectonic period resulted in extensive north-west trending normal faults throughout Central Nevada. The Cortez fault which can be traced southeast from the Cortez mine is one of the most prominent of these features in the basin and range province.

Gold deposits and other mineral occurrences in North-Central Nevada are aligned along distinct trends. The three principal trends are the Getchell Trend, the Battle Mountain-Cortez Trend and the Carlin Trend. The lateral extent of the gold belts and the abundance of deposits coupled with the large vertical range of gold deposition suggest that extremely large mineralizing hydrothermal systems were active in the Great Basin. Thinning of the continental crust over the Great Basin during Tertiary time led to extensive and long-lived igneous activity. Intrusive activity was instrumental in providing a heat source to generate fluids in the mineralizing systems.

The alignment of gold deposits along linear trends reflected by geophysical discontinuities implies that structures and major crustal breaks localized hydrothermal activity and mineralization. Other primary mineralizing controls include permeability and porosity, fold fabric, fracture density and reactive host rocks.

During the Antler orogeny the upper plate assemblage was transported over the lower plate units along the Roberts Mountain Thrust. The thrust was also folded and upwarped during this time. Intrusion of granitic rocks during the Mesozoic caused localized doming throughout the region. This doming accentuated the Shoshone Fold Belt, a series of northeast trending broad amplitude folds with widths up to seven miles.

The Paleozoic Roberts Mountain Formation is the primary host to the gold deposits of the Carlin Trend. In the Cortez Hills-Toiyabe area the Roberts Mountain Formation is the host to gold mineralization at the Gold Acres, Cortez and Cortez Hills deposits. The Pipeline deposit is also hosted by Roberts Mountain carbonates beneath valley fill and alluvial cover. The Horse Canyon deposit lies within both the upper plate Vinini Formation and the lower plate Wenban limestones. The target at the Toy claims is a similar type geological environment to the Cortez, Cortez Hills, Pediment, Horse Canyon and Pipeline deposits as a window of lower plate Roberts Mountain formation is projected to occur within the property. This hypothesis is speculative, considering the pediment cover, can only be tested by drilling.

Local Geology

Formations in the Toiyabe area as mapped from adjacent properties with outcrop, which belong to the upper plate assemblage include the following:

1. Elder Creek Formation (Silurian). A unit comprised of feldspathic sandstones, chert and some limestone beds.

2. Slaven Chert (Devonian). Primarily thin to thick bedded black chert with some argillites and thick bedded carbonaceous quartzites.

3. Valmy Formation (Ordovician). Mainly dolomitic sandstone, quartzite and chert with minor amounts of siltstone, shale limestone and mafic volcanics.

4. Vinini Formation (Ordovician). Mainly carbonaceous argillites and thin-bedded limestones, with some chert with minor amounts of quartzite, greenstones and limestones.

The upper plate assemblage hosts a number of significant vein and vein stock work/breccia type gold deposits in the Cortez Hills-Toiyabe area. These include, the Tenabo, Buckhorn, Elder and Hilltop deposits.

The lower plate rocks present in the Toiyabe area are dominantly shallow marine carbonate units with some shale beds. Three formations belonging to the lower plate are present in the project area:

1. Wenban Limestones (Devonian). Dolomite, limestone and minor amounts of sandstone and quartzite.

2. Roberts Mountain Formation (Silurian/Devonian). Laminated, calcareous to dolomitic siltstones and thick-bedded carbonaceous limestones.

3. Hanson Creek Formation (Ordovician/Silurian). Dolomites and clastic dolomites.