Pacific Gold Corp., through its subsidiary, Pilot Mountain Resources Inc., has the mineral rights for 30 unpatented federal mining claims in Mineral County, Nevada. The claims form a project known as Project W and are in three separate blocks. Together they encompass an area of approximately 600 acres. The Company acquired the claims from Platoro West Incorporated.
Project W encompasses three distinct occurrences of tungsten mineralization known as Desert Scheelite, Gunmetal and Garnet. During the 1970's and early 1980's, diamond drilling conducted by both the Duval Corporation and Union Carbide Corporation resulted in the delineation of these three principal areas. Reports addressing the occurrences of tungsten mineralization and estimates of resources of Project W have been written by personnel of Duval Corporation, Union Carbide Corporation and independent consultants including Kaiser Engineers, Inc., and David S. Robertson and Associates. Pilot Mountain Resources Inc. has access to these reports through its agreement with Platoro West Incorporated.
Initial mineral resources were identified by the Duval Corporation in the mid 1970's. Union Carbide purchased the project from Duval in 1978 and continued to outline additional resources. Various categories of resources were calculated by Union Carbide Corporation for the Desert Scheelite, Gunmetal and Garnet tungsten occurrences, based on extensive exploratory drilling carried out largely by Duval Corporation and Union Carbide Corporation during the 1970's and early 1980's. A resource of 8,299,000 tons averaging 0.33% WO3 was calculated for the Desert Scheelite occurrence, a resource of 427,200 tons averaging 0.42% WO3 was calculated for the Gunmetal occurrence, and a resource of 1,562,800 tons averaging 0.37% WO3 was calculated for the Garnet occurrence. At the time, it was concluded by Union Carbide that further drilling in the vicinity of the Gunmetal and Garnet tungsten occurrences would likely add appreciably to the existing known tungsten resource.
|
|
In 1981, the project was the subject of a feasibility study undertaken by Kaiser Engineers Inc. While the study concluded that a combination of open-pit and underground mining would return an acceptable profit, the tungsten market collapsed shortly thereafter and the project remained idle until the demise of the Metals and Mining Division of Union Carbide during the late 1980's.
Although there are discrepancies and disagreements as to estimates of tonnages and grades among the existing reports on the project, there is a general consensus that there is a significant resource of tungsten mineralization containing other metals in potentially significant amounts on the claims held through Pilot Mountain Resources. A geologist's report commissioned by Pacific Gold Corp., dated November 2002, concludes that under the right economic conditions, dictated essentially by metal price, mill recoveries and operating cost efficiencies, and subject to adequate financing, part or most of the tungsten mineralization in Project W may become viable. The report further recommends that additional information be obtained in respect of the project through inclined drill holes, feasibility and scoping studies, metallurgical and chemical testing and creation of three-dimensional models.
next > Geology |