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Contact
Allied Nevada Gold Corp., through the acquisition
from Vista of the F. W. Lewis Inc. properties, owns wholly or in
fractional interest 110 patented claims in the Contact mining district
in northeast Elko County, Nevada. The Company also staked 307 unpatented
claims adjacent to the patented claims in early July, 2007. There are no
royalties associated with Allied’s ownership of both the patented and
unpatented mining claims.
The small settlement of Contact is located
approximately 52 miles north of Wells, Nevada and 16 miles south of
Jackpot, Nevada. The mining district is immediately west of the town of
Contact and extends for several miles west and southwest of town. The
mining district, referred to as both the Contact or Salmon River
district, was discovered in the early 1870's and was first worked for
gold and silver. However, copper was soon discovered and the vast
majority of the historic work in the district has been directed toward
the development and production of copper ores. Early work in the
district was hampered by the inaccessibility of the area and the
resultant high shipping costs for any ore produced. The later
construction of the railroad eliminated this problem, but falling copper
prices in the 1930's caused the district to cease production. The
district saw a renewed period of activity in the l940's and early
l950's, but little true exploration work was done and most efforts were
directed toward mining already known ore deposits. More recently,
various companies have looked at the district for precious metals in the
1980’s and 1990’s, and higher copper and molybdenum prices have recently
renewed interest in those prospects.
Geology
The area is underlain by a granodiorite batholith and
related rocks of Mesozoic age which intruded a Late Paleozoic
sedimentary sequence of' shale and limestone. Contact metamorphism and
metasomatism produced skarns and hornfels in the sediments up to a mile
away from the contact zone. High-grade precious and base metal
mineralization occurs along these contact metamorphic zones. The
intrusion of the porphyry and alaskite was apparently centered near the
North Contact Zone. This intrusion further metamor¬phosed the
sedimentary rocks and culminated in a wave of copper mineralization that
not only affected the contact zones, but mineralized masses of porphyry
and alaskite.
Various companies, including Phelps Dodge Company in
the early 1970’s and Golden Phoenix in the early 1990’s and their
engineering and geological staffs, have estimated the resources in the
district and published historic resource estimates. The resource
estimates are based on drilling primarily in and around the Banner Zone,
the center of which is located approximately one (1) mile west-northwest
of town. There has been recent drilling in the Zone by another company,
and Allied controls patented claims on the west and east ends of the
Banner Zone. Although Allied has not conducted any drilling on the
property, the Company’s geologic staff is in the process of evaluating
the potential of the district and will review business opportunities
that might develop. |
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