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Tavsan Sector
Management Quote: "The Tavsan Sector presents an opportunity to develop a small-footprint, low-strip ratio, heap-leach gold mine. Current JORC compliant resources stand at 215,000 ounces gold equivalent."
Summary
The Tavsan Sector encompasses three principle prospects which are summarised below:
- Tavsan - 4km of outcropping gold mineralised jasperoid containing an initial JORC resource of 215,000 oz Au equivalent.
- Evciler - 2km of anomalous geochemistry associated with mineralised jasperoid, which has not been tested by drilling.
- Caldibi - 2km of outcropping jasperoid which has not been tested by surface sampling or drilling.
Management has established a field office at the nearby town of Balikoy to help focus efforts and to enable efficient development of the project. Local support for the project is significant and the Company has employed support staff from Balikoy.
Teck Cominco Limited (NYSE & TSX: TCK) retains the right to a royalty of up to 2% on future gold production from the Tavsan Project.
Location and Infrastructure
The Tavsan Gold Project is located in the Dagardi District of Kutahya Province in western Turkey. The project comprises several operating and exploration licences, which contain all of the known prospects. The Project area lies 75km from the Kiziltepe Sector and approximately 180km east of the one million ounce Ovacik gold mine and 120km northwest of the five million ounce Kisladag gold mine.
The project area is serviced by a high-quality network of sealed district roads and un-sealed village roads. The company has also benefited from considerable local expertise in the mining industry, which has until recently focused on the production of coal and chromite.
Geological Outline
Tavsan
The Tavsan prospect contains 4km of outcropping gold mineralised jasperoid, which is located along a low-angle thrust fault separating underlying Jurassic limestone from overlying Late Cretaceous ophiolitic rocks. The outcropping jasperoid occurs in an area covering approximately 4 x 4km and individual segments of jasperoid are exposed at surface for 500m and are up to 20m thick. The mineralised jasperoid forms an undulating sheet with an approximate 11 degree dip to the southwest, with the outcrop tending to arc in a NE-SW direction.
Due to the relatively gently dipping nature of the jasperoid, much of the mineralisation is potentially open-pittable at a very low strip-ratio. Following an economic scoping study the company considers its development as a heap-leach operation capable of delivering up to 30,000 ounces per annum at a production rate of 1Mt per annum.
Gold mineralisation is restricted to the jasperoid and is associated with very thin quartz veinlets which occur at a high angle to the main jasperoid body. Very little mineralisation occurs in the ophiolites or limestone.
Economic Potential
SRK Consulting has provided a JORC-compliant Indicated and Inferred resource for the Main, Satellite and Sivri zones at the Tavsan prospect of ~4.9 Mt @ 1.3 g/t Au equivalent, for a total metal content of 215,000 oz Au equivalent. Metallurgical testwork undertaken on the Tavsan ore by SGS Lakefield laboratories in Canada has confirmed that the ore shows good metallurgical characteristics via heap-leaching.
An internal preliminary economic assessment of Tavsan has been completed and demonstrates its viability as heap leach operation delivering up to 30,000 per annum at a rate of 1Mt per annum.
Further detail is provided in a paper presented by the Ariana exploration team at the SGA 2009 conference in Townsville, Australia in August 2009:
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