Easter Project, Lincoln County, Nevada, USAi

Regional Level Types
Easter Project	Project
Lincoln County	County
Nevada	State
USA	Country

Structure: Local structures evident at the property are a shear zone as well as cross-faulting and fractures with slight silicification and mineralization at intersections with main fault zone.

Alteration: Alteration consists of silicification, argillization, and propylitization

Tectonics: Caliente Caldera Complex

Commodity: Ore Materials: gold, cinnabar Gangue Materials: quartz, iron and manganese oxides, adularia

Deposit: Brecciated, recemented vein quartz occurs along a fault zone cutting silicified rhyolite. The wallrock is laced with banded chalcedonic quartz. Wallrock adjacent to the structure is green from propylitic alteration. Within the vein, silicified breccia fragments are embedded in a matrix of chalcedonic quart with open spaces coated with acicular quartz crystals. Some lamellar quartz after calcite is present. Some quartz may have replaced original adularia crystals. There are traces of iron and manganese oxides in vein material. The 10 to15-foot thick silicified breccia zone is exposed for about 1000 feet along strike. An iron-oxide-stained zone in the immediate footwall of the structure has been stoped in one area. Richest ore was found in the farthest east portions of the vein system. The Easter property mineralization is an epithermal quartz-adularia vein stockwork system within Tertiary volcanics of the Caliente Caldera Complex of southeastern Nevada. The Easter vein has been traced on the surface for a strike length of 6,450 feet and drill tested to a depth of 1,740 feet. The main mineralized zone is lens shaped in plan view, and is 50 to 125 feet wide in the center of the deposit, pinching to 20-25 feet wide to the east and west. The core of the deposit rises as a hillside above the surrounding country, allowing for surface mining with little or no waste stripping required. Gold mineralization is associated with silicification in the form of stockworks, fissure-filling veins and silicified volcanics. The highest grades (up to +0.50 oz/ton Au) are in the immediate hanging wall of the vein. There is an extensive opaline sinter and argillically altered bedded tuff sequence on the eastern side of the property. Bedded hot-springs-pool opalite containing cinnabar indicates a once active geothermal system with potential for additional precious metal mineralization at depth.

Deposit type: Hot-spring Au-Ag

Development: The property was covered by 4 full claims (in 1912) along the strike of the vein for 6750 feet. J.W. Taylor was the principal owner in 1912, and Mr. E.C.D. Marriage in 1933. Phil Dolan was the lessee in 1933-1935. The property has been the focus of renewed exploration activity by joint ventures since 1982, including work by Homestake, FMC Gold Company, Hanna Mining, Aur Resources, and Phelps Dodge Mining Company. A total of 104 drill holes have been completed on the prospect, both core holes and reverse circulation holes. Homestake Mining Company made a resource estimate in 1988 of 4 million tons at 0.056 oz/ton at a 0.02 oz/ton cutoff (224,740 oz Au), based upon 25 drill holes. In 1995, it was reported that five holes of a phase three drilling program had been completed at the Easter gold property by World Wide Minerals, Ltd. All the holes intersected the previously identified mineralized zone. The drill program was to continue for at least 18 holes totaling 6,000 feet. Phases one and two, conducted in 1994 on the main vein, defined gold ore reserves of 1.5 million tons grading 0.069 opt gold. These are open-pit reserves delineated to an average depth of only 200 feet. Geophysical surveys have revealed that the Main vein persists at least 400 feet to the west, and several strong targets were encountered. Beta Minerals acquired the Easter gold exploration project in 2003. In August, 2004 Beta Minerals announced completion of and assay results from their drilling program on the Easter Property. Twelve core holes totaling 4,857 feet were drilled during June and July to test gold mineralization along a strike length of 2,840 feet within the 6,500 foot long zone, and tested the mineralization to a depth of 851 vertical feet. 451 samples were submitted for gold assay. The drilling confirmed down-dip continuity of mineralization and expanded the resouce but did not produce the spectaclar results that had been anticipated.

Ore(s): Ore is controlled by a brecciated shear zone along a normal fault which curves from NW to nearly E-W.

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Link to USGS MRDS:	10310470

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