Location and Land Position
Harvest Gold’s RW property in Eureka County, Nevada consists of 125 unpatented lode mining claims, covering approximately 4.04 square miles (1,045 ha). The claims were staked by Harvest Gold in September 2010 and are 100% owned by the Company.
The RW claims lie from two to four miles south of the south flank of the Roberts Mountains in the northeast part of Kobeh Valley. Eight Carlin-type deposits have been discovered in the Roberts Mountains and approximately 588,000 oz gold have been produced from the Gold Bar, Gold Pick/Gold Ridge, Gold Canyon and Gold Stone mines.
The RW claims lie approximately six miles (10 km) east-southeast of the Gold Bar Mine and about 5 miles (8 km) south-southeast of the Gold Pick and Gold Ridge mines.
Gravel obscures bedrock geologic relationships on the RW claims, and exploration will be somewhat blind. However, projections of structural elements, stratigraphy, and geophysical trends all suggest that the RW claims cover an area of favorable stratigraphy and structure at fairly shallow depth. A west-northwest oriented gravity high extends from the Gold Bar mine southeastward onto the RW claims. This gravity trend coincides with gold and pathfinder element anomalies detected by competitors to the west of the RW property. An enzyme-leach soil survey conducted by Harvest Gold has delineated west-northwest trending gold and trace-element anomalies, which line up well with the anomalies to the west and with the west-northwest gravity high. The coincident west-northwest gravity and gold + trace element anomalies provide evidence for an unexplored trend of gold mineralization parallel to the main Pot Canyon to Cabin Creek trend, extending from Gold Bar to the RW claims.
The enzyme-leach soil anomaly shows a dominant west-northwest trend, but also has north-south elements. Mineralizing “feeder” structures in the Roberts Mountains gold deposits have north-northwest, northeast and east-northeast trends. The soil anomaly pattern on the RW claims appears to mimic these regional trends.
The coincident gravity and gold + trace element anomalies on the RW claims define a broad west-northwest trending exploration target. More detailed soil surveys and a gravity survey are planned to further refine the geophysical and geochemical anomalies and define specific targets for drill testing.
The Roberts Mountains lie within the southern part of the Battle Mountain-Eureka Mineral Belt, which contains a number of large Carlin-type gold deposits including Pipeline, Cortez Hills, and Archimedes. The Roberts Mountains contain at least eight sediment-hosted gold deposits, ranging in size from 15,000 oz gold (Hunter) to 866,000 oz gold (Gold Pick/Gold Ridge). Total recorded production by Atlas Precious Metals is about 588,000 oz gold, of which 322,000 oz gold came from the Gold Bar mine. U.S. Gold has been exploring the Gold Pick/Gold Ridge deposits and now reports a total resource (inferred + indicated + measured) of 996,744 oz gold for the Gold Pick/Gold Ridge, Cabin Creek and Hunter deposits.
The deposits are all typical Carlin-type gold deposits hosted in Devonian carbonates (Denay Limestone, Bartine member of McColley Canyon Formation) and to a lesser extent in Mississippian clastic rocks (Webb Fm) in an erosional window through the Roberts Mountain thrust fault. The deposits exhibit a combination of structural and stratigraphic/lithologic controls and are characterized by a typical Carlin-type elemental suite of Au>>Ag, As, Sb and Hg, micron-size gold, and an alteration suite of decalcification and silicification.
The majority of the deposits in the Roberts Mountains occur within a west-northwest trend extending from Pot Canyon on the west through Gold Canyon and Gold Pick/Gold Ridge to Cabin Creek on the east. The trend of deposits corresponds to a subtle anticline in the lower-plate carbonate rocks. The Gold Bar mine is located in a small horst of Devonian carbonates surrounded by gravels along the southwest edge of the Roberts Mountains. A west-northwest trend of mineralization, parallel to the Pot Canyon to Cabin Creek trend is postulated to extend from Gold Bar to the RW claims.
The Roberts Mountains contain a number of fairly small Carlin-type deposits, but to date no major (>2 M oz Au) deposit has been found. Carlin-type districts in Nevada typically contain one or more >1 M oz gold deposit within a cluster of smaller satellite deposits. Harvest Gold believes that the major gold deposit of the district has yet to be discovered and is likely to be found in the under-explored gravel-covered area of Kobeh Valley.
Geologic Setting
Kobeh Valley is a broad gravel-filled valley flanking the Roberts Mountains. The geologic setting of the Roberts Mountains is dominated by the Roberts Mountains window, a structural block in which Silurian to Devonian platform carbonates, lying in the footwall of the Roberts Mountains thrust fault, have been uplifted and exposed through erosion. The western boundary of the southern Roberts Mountains window is a major north-northwest fault, the Wall fault, which separates deep-water Ordovician rocks in the upper plate of the thrust on the west from Silurian to Mississippian rocks of the lower plate on the east.
The Wall fault projects into Kobeh Valley and passes along the western margin of the RW claims. Upper-plate siliciclastic rocks (poor Carlin-type host rocks) can be expected to underlie the area to the west of the RW claims, whereas lower-plate carbonate rocks project onto the RW claims.
The RW claims are entirely covered by gravels, making exploration blind. Regional gravity data suggest that a west-northwest trending gravity high extends from the horst at the Gold Bar mine east-southeastward onto the RW claims. Depth to basement (lower plate carbonates) is estimated to range from 500 ft (150 m) to 1000 ft (300 m) on the RW claims.
Exploration History
Several competitors hold claims in the general area, including Newmont and U.S. Gold to the north, NV Gold at Afgan to the northeast, Nevada Eagle to the east, and Bravada to the west. Historical exploration within Kobeh Valley has been conducted sporadically since the mid-1980’s, but little drilling has been done. ASARCO drilled a few holes along the southern flank of the Roberts Mountains and Atlas Minerals drilled a few holes in the northernmost part of the valley prior to relinquishing all of its claims in 2001. Atlas was focused on development of near-surface deposits in the Roberts Mountains and did not follow-up the Kobeh Valley drilling program. Newmont staked more than 2000 claims covering most of central and eastern Kobeh Valley area in 2003-2004, conducted gravity and CSAMT surveys, and drilled several shallow (ca 200 m) angle holes within the claim block in 2005. Although Harvest has no data from the holes, it is suspected that Newmont had some drilling success in the area of two claims, which Newmont continues to hold internal to Harvest’s block. Mount Hope Mines drilled several deep water-well tests in Kobeh Valley including within the RW claim block. The wells were drilled for development of the Mount Hope molybdenum mine, one of the largest molybdenum deposits in the world. Tone Resources drilled several holes to the northwest of the property and confirmed the presence of shallow Paleozoic bedrock in that area. Off to the west and southwest, Bravo Ventures and Placer Dome drilled about 20 holes on Bravo’s South Lone Mountain project. A 1970’s vintage oil well in this area (approximately 8 km southwest of the property) intersected bedrock of lower-plate carbonates (Roberts Mountains Fm) at a depth of 427 m (1400 feet). Projecting gravity and seismic estimates of depth to bedrock from the oil well and the holes drilled by Bravo/Placer Dome indicates that bedrock is at relatively shallow depths (150 to <500m) on the RW claims.
Effective January 1, 2012 the Company entered into a mining lease and option to purchase agreement with Kinetic Gold (US) Inc. As per the terms in the agreement the Company is in receipt of the first US$10,000 upon execution of the agreement.
The Company is no longer amanging the exploration of the property following the successful optioning of it to Kinetic Gold (US) Inc.