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- 6 square kilometre silver project in central Nevada
- Historical district production of approximately 20 million ounces of silver
- Multiple target areas have been identified for drilling
- New York Canyon priority target has had no previous drilling. Surface sampling by the Company has returned encouraging silver values
- Amador Canyon target has seen minimal drilling; with a historical drill hole returning 286 g/t silver over 12.2 metres. Company surface sampling returned 411 g/t silver over 3 metres
- Recent work in Amador Canyon area has identified a new gold zone that represents seperate drill target
- Permit application for drilling to test for significant sediment-hosted silver and gold deposits has been prepared and submitted
Location
The Reese River Project is situated in the Austin mining district of central Nevada. The project is well located approximately five kilometers north of the town of Austin with good road access.
Overview
New Dimension has acquired, through lease/option agreements and staking, a large land position within the northern portion of the Reese River Mining District (also known as the Austin District) in central Nevada. The land package includes the New York Canyon and Amador Canyon areas that have seen considerable historical silver production during the 1880's. New Dimension technical staff believes that there is significant potential on the claims for both high grade underground and bulk mineable silver and gold deposits.
New York Canyon was the site of major underground mining of high-grade silver that is estimated at upwards of five million ounces. Silver grades from the mines here varied considerably with historic production records indicating some ore chutes containing over 1,000 ounces of silver per ton. Average mining grades, however, were generally between 100 and 200 ounces per ton silver. In the 1980's large waste dumps from New York Canyon were processed at a local mill with the grades reported to average eight ounces silver per ton. The Company has not verified this information.
The Company can acquire its interest in the 23 optioned New York Canyon patented claims by a lease agreement with annual payments and a 3% Net Smelter Royalty. The NSR can be reduced to 1% by paying the lessor US $3 million. The Company can also earn a 100% interest in a block of 24 unpatented claims that cover much of the Amador Canyon Zone of mineralization. This agreement allows the Company to earn its interest by making the annual payments and issuing shares of the Company over five years. The vendor retains a 3% NSR, with the Company having the right to purchase two of the three percentage points for US $2 million. In addition to the above two agreements, the Company has staked 52 claims to tie the New York Canyon and Amador Canyon claim blocks together and cover additional areas of exploration potential. All of the Company's ground is contigious.
Work Performed
A consulting geologist associated with the Company has taken thirty-nine chip samples over one metre widths in New York Canyon that averaged 60 g/t silver. In addition, 10 grab samples from remaining mine dumps averaged 160 g/t silver with this average not including a high value of 1,829 g/t silver. Additional sampling by the Company in the area has confirmed this range of silver mineralization within the target area. No known drilling has been conducted on or around the patented ground in New York Canyon. At Amador Canyon, limited previous drilling was completed to test manto style mineralization hosted in segments. Drill results from that program included a 12.2 metre intercept averaging 286 g/t silver. Multiple targets of this type remain to be tested. In addition to the manto style targets, recent mapping and sampling at Amador Canyon has also focused on a large easterly trending structural zone that saw significant historic mining activity. This target has not been drill tested. Also of potential importance is that recent sampling in the Amador Canyon area has also identified gold values up to 10 g/t. This gold area lies several hundred metres east of the main silver zone at Amador Canyon and potentially represents a stand-alone gold target on the property.
Geology
The Company's main targets of interest at Reese River are veins and shear zones that are formed at or near the contact between intrusive rocks and overlying sediments. Many of these shears have shallow to moderate dips and appear to follow bedding planes in the sediments and form "stacked" tabular zones of mineralization. Other veins and shears on the property cross cut bedding with generally steeper dips and can be projected into the underlying intrusive rocks. These are the likely feeder structures to the mineral system. This contact area is a structurally disrupted zone that facilitated the introduction and dispursment of mineralizing solutions and this favourable environment has seen very limited exploration in modern times.
Planned Exploration
A surface evaluation program is ongoing with the objective of drilling priority targets at New York and Amador Canyon as soon as possible. A Plan of Operation to complete approximately 30 drill holes was submitted to the U.S. Forest Service in October with approval expected in the spring of 2008.
At New York Canyon, past mining activity was focused on quartz vein hosted mineralization that was controlled by shallow, northeast dipping fault zones. These shallow dipping faults were also a major control to intrusive sill emplacement which probably had some genetic relationship to mineralization. Recent dump sampling has demonstrated that the sediment and intrusive wall-rocks also host significant disseminated mineralization in close proximity to the historically mined vein occurrences. These structurally controlled wall-rock targets will be drill-tested along a 1,300 metre strike length that yielded the major silver production in the New York Canyon area. Based on representative mine-dump sampling by the Company, the wall-rock mineralization within this large target area is predicted to be between five and 10 ounces per ton silver. There is also strong evidence that these structurally controlled zones of quartz vein and mineralized wall-rock are stacked within an imbricate thrust package of quartzites and siltstone. Based on surface mapping there is a 200-300 metre thick stratigraphic section containing several mineralized zones.
At Amador Canyon, drilling will follow up favourable drilling done previously on the property by others on shallow dipping manto style mineralization. Drilling will also test the large Amador Canyon fault that saw significant past mining activity and has never been drilled. The newly recognized Amador Canyon gold target will also see additional field work including drilling.
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