Atlanta Gold, Idaho Click to Print This Page
 

History of the Atlanta Gold Mine

 The Atlanta project lies within the historic Middle Boise Mining District in an area with a history of exploration, development, and production of gold and silver ore since its discovery in 1863. The project site is located on top of Atlanta Hill, which rises approximately 1,900 feet above the town of Atlanta, Idaho, to a maximum elevation of 7,200 feet above mean sea level (msl).

Gold was discovered in the vicinity of Atlanta in 1863 and the region has since undergone sporadic periods of metal production. The most productive years were during the periods from about 1870 to 1885, 1902 to 1917, and 1932 to 1957. Estimated production from the Atlanta lodes during those time periods was 297,000 ounces of gold and 2.6 million ounces of silver. The Atlanta lode and associated lateral veins occur in a biotite granodiorite, which has been affected to varying degrees by hydrothermal alteration.

Gold and silver mineralization is closely associated with the more intensely silicified zones of the biotite granodiorite. A geologic alteration model has been developed for the deposit to represent this association. Present day exploration activities started with Atlanta Gold in 1985 and have continued through to the present. Several joint ventures were established over these years in order to explore the deposit. These included the Ramrod Gold Corporation and Newmont Mining Ltd. Atlanta Gold Inc. is the current operator of the property through its wholly-owned subsidiary Atlanta Gold Corporation.

Atlanta Gold Corporation holds 100% operating interest in the property, with a firm option to acquire 100% ownership of the property.
 

 

Permits and Environmental
The Atlanta gold property operates under a variety of permits issued by local, State and Federal agencies.
Current activities at Atlanta are in compliance with all required permit conditions, including monitoring and
reporting conditions. Certain operating permits may be amended to more closely reflect planned operations.


Exploration

The Company is engaged in the exploration and development of the Atlanta Gold project

(“Atlanta”), an advanced-stage gold property near Atlanta, Idaho, U.S.A.

Atlanta is the cornerstone of the Company’s future. It is located in a stable jurisdiction with

minimal political risk in which mineral development rules are well known and a skilled

workforce is available. The project has exceptional exploration potential, at a time when the

demand for gold is increasing and supply is limited.

In early 2008, the Company changed the mining strategy for Atlanta from bulk mining

and cyanide heap leaching, to a combined shallow open-pit and underground operation

with an on-site milling facility with no cyanide circuit. This new mining strategy will

produce both a gravity concentrate and a precious metal rich sulphide concentrate to

be custom smelted. It will also reduce the environmental footprint by 95% and increase

expected metal recovery rates from 63% to 90%. Each of these improvements is critical to

the sustainable development of the Atlanta gold mine.

This more selective method of ore extraction positively addresses environmental concerns

identified during previous permitting efforts. Management is confident that by working

closely with environmental groups, the town of Atlanta and surrounding communities,

federal, state and local agencies as well as other stakeholders, it will be successful in obtaining

the regulatory approvals necessary to develop a combined shallow pit and an underground

mine at Atlanta in a timely manner.


Highlights from Operations - 2008

In 2008 the Company implemented a new strategy which focused on developing plans for:

• a small-scale surface operation with a small environmental footprint

• a mining operation confined to private lands

• an 800-ton-per-day pilot processing plant to produce a gravity concentrate, and

a flotation concentrate which can be produced without the use of cyanide. The

concentrate will be sold to others for final processing. In this way, Company

operations in Idaho will be cyanide free thus minimizing the environmental impact.

• lower consumption of water. When the pilot mill is constructed in 2010, treatment

and recycling of water will be an integral part of processing the ore.

• continued investigation of the underground potential of the 11,400-foot long

Atlanta Shear Zone from which, historically, 340,000 equivalent ounces has been

extracted from high grade sections at gold prices of US$20-$35 per ounce using

cut-off grades of 0.5 ounces per short ton (“opt”) (17.1 grams per tonne) up to and

including 1935 and 0.4 opt (13.7 grams per tonne) thereafter.


In addition, during 2008 the Company achieved the following:

§ Appointed Ernie Simmons as Chief Operating Officer of the Company. Mr.

Simmons has a long history of accomplishments in the industry, and now resides in

Boise, Idaho.

§ Relocated its Idaho principal office from Mountain Home to Boise, which is closer

to the Atlanta project, and to regulators, suppliers, interest groups with whom the

Company needs close communications.

§ Established open dialogue and communications with the four most significant

environmental groups in Idaho regarding shared environmental concerns and the

optimum strategy to advance the project.

§ Continued to treat 2.5 million gallons of water per month to remove naturallyoccurring

arsenic which would otherwise flow untreated into Montezuma Creek and

in turn into the Boise River.

§ Eliminated the use of cyanide for heap leaching from the mining plan. This results

in a much lower environmental impact. With an expected environmental footprint

which is only 5% of that previously envisioned, the new mining plan appears to have

been well received by the public, regulators and other stakeholders.

§ Increased surface drilling productivity from 8,000 feet (2,438 metres) in 2007 to

15,000 feet (4,572 metres) in 2008.

§ Reduced the cost of drilling from $98.20 per foot in 2007 to $32.38 per foot in

2008.

§ Completed 2,180 feet (664 metres) of trenching across the Atlanta Shear Zone

which exposed and identified significant gold-bearing mineralization in 22 out of

25 trenches in the Idaho, Monarch and the East Extension areas and 14 out of the

22 mineralized trenches showed samples with assays of 0.10 opt Au or higher. This

surface expression identified a number of excellent gold resource targets amenable to

low-cost selective shallow open-pit mining which will provide early plant feed. All

samples taken above the Shear Zone had anomalous gold.

§ Raised total proceeds of $7,783,000 from non-brokered private placements.

The Company also staked 367 contiguous lode unpatented claims totaling 6,880 acres at

Rocky Bar to expand its regional property interests in Idaho. The total landholding 

combined with Atlanta Project is 9,077 acres.


Mineral Reserves and Resources

Cautionary note to U.S. investors concerning Measured, Indicated and Inferred mineral resources:
These terms are required by the CIM's "Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves, Definitions and Guidelines".
U.S. investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of the stated mineral resources will be converted into reserves.
Please also see additional cautionary notes under Legal Notice.

The Table 1. shows the resource estimate as per NI43-101 Technical Report of March 30, 2009
authored by Mr. William L. Josey, a Qualified Person as specified in the NI43-101 and is a Registered
Professional Geologist in the State of Arizona.
 

                                Table 1. SUMMARY OF MEASURED AND INDICATED RESOURCE ESTIMATE

 

GOLD

SILVER

Total
Equivalent
Ounces
of Gold (6)
(000's)

Area

Cut-Off

Grade

(opt)

Gold

Grade

(opt)

Tons

(000’s)

Ounces

of Gold

(000’s)

Ratio

of Silver

to

Gold

Ounces


Ounces
of Silver
(000's)

Price Factor (2)
Gold Price /
Silver Price

Equivalent
Ounces of Gold
(000's)

MINI-PIT RESOURCE:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

East and West Monarch (1)

0.05

0.111

419.3

46.4

4.28

198.6

73.7

2.7

49.1

Idaho (1)

0.05

0.060

82.3

4.9

4.28(4)

21.1

73.7

0.3

5.2

TOTAL MINI PIT RESOURCE

 

0.095

501.6

51.3

4.28

219.7

 

3.0

54.3

UNDERGROUND RESOURCE:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monarch and Idaho (1)

0.10

0.161

2,125.8

343.3

2.02

797.7

73.7

10.8

354.1

East Extension (5)

0.10

0.177

370.5

65.7

0.80

52.5

73.7

0.7

66.4

TOTAL UNDERGROUND RESOURCE

0.10

0.164

2,496.3

409.0

1.81

850.2

73.7

11.5

420.5

TOTAL RESOURCE

0.154(3)

2,997.9

460.3

2.12

1,069.9

 

14.5

474.9

(1)    Based on a compilation of the same input data used for the 2007 Technical Report which is Canadian National Instrument 43-101(“NI 43-101”)  compliant

(2)    Price Factor, using closing prices as of the close of business on November 3, 2008 on New York Globex is 73.70 (US$722.00 per ounce of gold   / US$9.79 per ounce of silver)

(3)    Average grade of gold per ton = 0.154 ounces per ton (460,300 ounces / 2,997,900 tons)

(4)    Estimated ratio of silver to gold ounces

(5)    The resource for the East Extension is a total resource.  It has not been decided with certainty whether the East Extension area can be mined by open pit methods or underground or both.

(6)    The average grade of gold equivalent (including silver resources as a gold equivalent) per ton = 0.158 ounces per ton (474,900 ounces / 2,997,900 tons)

The Table 2. shows the resource estimate summary at various cut-off grades.
 
                                                   Table 2. SUMMARY OF RESOURCE ESTIMATES

ATLANTA TOTAL RESOURCES

CUT-OFF GRADE (opt Au)

CLASS

TONS

(000’s

GOLD (Au)

SILVER (Ag)

Grade

(opt)

Ounces

(000’s)

Grade

(opt)

Ounces

(000’s)

0.025

Measured

15,452.2

0.063

974.1

0.097

2,564.4

Indicated

5,706.4

0.055

313.5

0.107

609.6

Measured +Indicated

21,158.6

0.061

1,287.6

0.150

3,174.0

Inferred

9,520.9

0.053

499.8

0.067

636.4

0.050

Measured

7,328.7

0.094

688.5

0.246

1,805.7

Indicated

3,024.6

0.091

275.7

0.137

415.1

Measured +Indicated

10,353.3

0.093

964.2

0.215

2,220.8

Inferred

2,933.5

0.049

143.6

0.102

298.8

0.100

Measured

1,949.2

0.164

319.8

0.437

851.4

Indicated

741.4

0.163

121.0

0.185

137.4

Measured +Indicated

2,690.6

0.164

440.8

0.368

988.8

Inferred

919.6

0.150

138.2

0.168

154.0

0.150

Measured

750.6

0.236

176.9

0.623

467.8

Indicated

322.1

0.222

71.6

0.204

65.8

Measured +Indicated

1,072.7

0.232

248.5

0.497

533.6

Inferred

299.5

0.214

64.2

0.075

22.3

 

Plan for Operations - 2009

The Company plans to achieve the following objectives at Atlanta:

a. complete 12,000 feet (3,658 metres) of shallow core drilling to a depth of 400 feet

(122 metres) on the East Extension, West Monarch and Idaho zones;

b. complete 33,000 feet (10,058 metres) of core drilling to an intermediate depth of

1,200 feet (400 metres) on the East Extension and Monarch zones;

c. excavate and sample 5,000 feet (1,524 metres) of trenches to further evaluate the near

surface potential of the Atlanta Shear Zone. The 2008 trenching program exposed

and identified significant gold-bearing mineralization in 22 out of 25 trenches. All

samples taken above the Atlanta Shear Zone had anomalous gold;

d. rehabilitate the first 800 feet (244 metres) of the 900 Adit;

e. subject to obtaining regulatory approvals, rehabilitate the next 1,475 feet (450

metres) of the 900 Adit and complete a 12,000-foot (3,658-metre) underground

drilling program from the 900 Adit;

f. redesign of reclamation ponds at the 900 Adit;

g. continue enhancement of Atlanta’s environmental performance, including ongoing

removal of naturally-occurring arsenic from historic water effluents;

h. continue collaboration with local communities, environmental, regulatory and other

stakeholders;

i. evaluate several alternative sites to accommodate infrastructure related to mining

operations;

j. complete an updated NI 43-101 report for the Atlanta resource; Update: March 31, 2009
See NI43-101 Technical Report by William. L. Josey (Qualified Person as per CSA NI43-101) 

k. complete an internal pre-feasibility study of the updated resource;

l. complete a business plan to process 300,000 tons of ore and produce 40,000 ounces

of gold per year, with start-up production expected to commence by the third quarter

of 2010;

m. increase the mineral resource inventory, targeted for 600,000 equivalent ounces of

gold by December 31, 2009.

n. continue economic, environmental and technical studies and secure water permits

and rights required to advance the project to production; and

o. secure the financing required for all of the above.

The combination of a proven record of historical production, a Shear Zone with an 11,400-

foot strike length, significant depth potential and multi-million ounce potential, presents

what management believes to be an outstanding value proposition.


 

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