Coral shows potential of the U.S.

The company has taken over the Robertson mine project, previously held by a Vancouver listing, Aaron Mining (VSE), one of several companies run by the late Andrew Robertson. The entrepreneurial Robertson was instrumental in the discovery of the Endako mine, now a major molybdenum producer. Despite its potential, however, he had less success with the Robertson mine, which was tied up in litigation for years and never really operated on a sustained basis.

Louis Wolfin, who started off in the Vancouver brokerage community in the early 1960s, paid off Aaron’s debts and put the property into Coral Gold. The mine was reopened in October of 1988 and gold output reached approximately 300 oz per week before severe winter conditions cut production.

Wolfin sees the mine as a company builder and a valuable addition to his portfolio of properties which includes the Avino silver mine in Mexico and some strategically located ground in the Bridge River area of British Columbia.

At full capacity he expects the Robertson mine to produce 40,000 oz gold per year. One leach pad is producing at the moment and a second is being added, he said. Present operations are centred around the Gold Quartz pit which averages approximately 0.05 oz gold per ton. A nearby zone, the Gold Pan, grades about 0.03 oz.

The current leach pad has a capacity of 1.2 million tons; a second will be constructed in the Triplet Gulch area where a large mineralized zone was discovered by drilling a few years ago. This new pad will have a capacity of five million tons, enough to justify a mining rate (ore) of 4,000 tons per day.

Triplet Gulch, which is located about 3,000 ft southeast of the Gold Quartz pit, is still open in all directions and appears to extend for at least a mile in length. Higher grade values have been encountered at deeper horizons including 20 ft of 0.335 oz gold at a depth of 400 ft, suggesting an underlying feeder system.

Future exploration will attempt to expand reserves near existing mine workings but follow-up work is planned for targets identified by previous owners. Placer Dome (TSE) has apparently encountered significant gold mineralization along the southeastern border of the Robertson property.

Ralph Roberts, whose paper on the Alinement of Mining Districts in North-central Nevada prompted Newmont to explore its Carlin mine property in the early 1960s, acts as a consultant to Coral Gold. Roberts believes the Robertson property could host a deep feeder system, similar to other producers in the Carlin and Battle Mountain gold trends.

Coral has additional holdings in Northern Nevada, mainly on the Battle Mountain and Carlin gold trends. The geology at Coral’s Modoc property is similar to that of Battle Mountain Gold’s Fortitude mine about three miles away.

Exploration plans for this project include aeromagnetic survey work and reconnaissance drilling. Some prospecting has been done on Coral’s Reese River property surrounding Echo Bay Mine’s McCoy and Cove deposits. A portion of the Cove structure runs onto Coral’s Reese River holdings which will be further explored in 1989.

The company has ground in the Bridge River area of British Columbia contiguous to Levon Resource’s Congress property where a number of high grade but refractory- type vein deposits have been found. A joint venture near the old Bralorne mine produced an assay of 2.3 oz gold over a width of 9.4 ft in a surface trench. The program was terminated in late 1988 because of heavy snowfall but it will resume again this year.

Wolfin had the property in Mexico that now hosts the Real de Angeles silver mine of Placer Dome. Now one of the largest silver mines in the world, he doesn’t want to let anything like that slip by again.

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