Minterra, Mill City hunt for gold

Vancouver — While exploration in Nevada’s famous gold camps continues to be dominated by major companies, a handful of juniors are still kicking the rocks in hopes of finding the next “big one.” Among the hopefuls are partners Mill City Gold (MC-V) and Minterra Resource (MTR-V) at the Elder Creek property near Elko, in Lander Cty.

Elder Creek is one of nine properties optioned by Minterra from Mill City. The company can earn 60% of the properties by spending US$5 million on exploration and development over five years, reimbursing Mill City for US$203,000 in expenses, and issuing the company 1 million shares. At this point, Minterra can elect to boost its interest in any given property to 70% by completing a bankable feasibility study.

Elder Creek is situated in the Battle Mountain-Eureka trend. The belt of favourable geology is also known as the Cortez trend because of the Pipeline and Pipeline South gold deposits held by the Cortez Joint Venture, owned 60% and operated by Placer Dome (PDG-T). Rio Tinto (RTP-N) owns the remainder.

Elder Creek is situated about five miles northwest of the producing Pipeline deposits and contains a near-surface gold resource that was partially mined from 1989 through 1990. The small mine produced 13,000 oz. gold before operations were suspended because the uncrushed ore “responded poorly” to being stacked on heap-leach pads.

A recent geological report compliant with National Instrument 43-101 standards concludes that the near-surface resource “is a guide to, and possibly indicative of, a high-grade gold deposit in lower plate carbonate rocks.”

The lower plate assemblage at the Pipeline deposits hosts several million ounces of gold, including high-grade feeder structures. Elder Creek is believed to have potential for high-grade gold along exposed structures where they intersect lower plate rocks at depth.

The newly launched drill program is aimed at testing the potential of the lower plate carbonate rocks as the source of gold mineralization in the open pit, and in gold mineralized dykes exposed in the base of the pit. Five holes are planned with a combined total of 4,000 ft. to test the lower plate carbonate rocks.