Gold Reef continued the geologic mapping and sampling program during the claim staking process.  Results continued to be encouraging with 488 samples collected from outcrops of highly altered Paleozoic sedimentary units including chert, limestone, quartzite, sandstone, shale and siltstone.  A total of 488 samples were collected during the follow up program including 29% anomalous in gold and 79% anomalous in silver, ten of which exceed an ounce per ton silver.

Through the 2007 sampling program a total of 1,070 surface rock chip samples have been collected and analyzed, of which 35% are anomalous in gold; 67% anomalous in silver; 46% anomalous in molybdenum and 38% anomalous in copper.  Gold Reef geologists collected samples from all exposed outcrops regardless of whether the outcrop appeared to be mineralized.  This systematic approach ensures that subtle features are not missed.  Distribution of the anomalous geochemistry at Golden Trail is accessible through Metal Miners Plus© using any combination of influencing factors such as lithology, structure, alteration and geophysics.

The screen shot "Geosample 1" (top left) depicts the distribution of anomalous gold in surface samples.

The screen shot "Geosample 2" (left) depicts the areal distribution of anomalous silver at Golden Trail along with the red mining claim boundary.

Geologic Summary:

The Golden Trail Project lies east of the Knoll Mountains and west of the Delano Mountains in the northeastern part of Elko County.  The project area is on the far eastern side of the Contact Mining District and includes the Emigrant Springs prospects (Lapointe and others, 1991).  The rocks of the nearby Knoll and Delano Mountains include thick sequences of Permian limestone, sandstone, chert, siltstone, shale, and phosphorite. The heterogeneous Pequop, Grandeur, and Phosphoria Formations are most abundant, but numerous undifferentiated Permian and Mississippian units have been mapped (Coats, 1987).  During the Jurassic Period these rocks were folded and cut by numerous bedding plane thrust faults (Coats, 1987; Slack, 1972). Locally, imbricate overthrust slices of lower Paleozoic Western Assemblage units, including Ordovician Vinini Formation and Devonian Slaven Chert, outcrop as klippe within the surrounding Permian rocks.  In the Granite Mountains, Contact Mining District, the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks are intruded by a Jurassic granodiorite (Maldonado, 1988), which is about 25 km long (east-west) and 12 km wide (north-south).  Finer grained, quartz monzonite and syenite dikes cut the granodiorite.  Garnet skarns and hornfels rocks are common along the contact of intrusive and sedimentary rocks.  Mineralized and un-mineralized quartz veins up to six meters wide and 3,000 meters long occupy some faults and quartz-vein stockworks occur locally along the intrusive contact.

To the east of Golden Trail In the Delano Mountains, the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks are intruded by the zoned quartz monzonite to granodiorite Indian Springs stock of Cretaceous age (134 to 136 Ma, Maldonado and others, 1988).  Granitic dikes intrude both northeast and less abundant northwest-striking faults of highly variable displacement.  Garnet skarns and hornfels rocks are common along the contact of intrusive and sedimentary rocks.  Mineralized and un-mineralized quartz veins up to five meters wide occupy some faults and quartz-vein stockworks occur locally along the intrusive contacts.

The stratigraphy of the Golden Trail Project consists of about 230 meters of exposed Paleozoic sedimentary rocks.  Northeast of the Golden Trail claim block more than 100 meters of Tertiary volcaniclastic rocks and strongly welded crystal-vitric rhyolite tuff probably unconformably overlie these Paleozoic rocks.  All of the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks were originally calcareous except where decalcified by hydrothermal fluid.  Contacts are gradational and their up-section lithostratigraphy grades from gently northeast dipping well bedded bioclastic and locally sandy limestone at the unexposed base, through a calcareous shale, which grades upward into a coarse grained calcareous sandstone at the top of the section.  These stratigraphic units may be the lower members of the Grandeur Formation, which are mapped to the east of the project, in the central Delano District, as the Footwall quartzite member overlying the Lower bioclastic member, which then overlies the Pequop Formation (Lapointe, 1991, p.77).  These members are common ore hosts in the central Delano District.

Volumetrically the bedded limestones represent over half of the Paleozoic outcrops in the project area and over 110 meters in thickness are exposed.  The limestone beds are light-to medium-grey except along faults and bedding planes where they are hydrothermally altered and replaced by silica and other secondary minerals.   Fossil-rich beds are common and a distinctive pebbly conglomerate bed outcrops about 0.5 km northeast of Emigrant Springs and about 4 km to the north near the historic prospects.  Fossils are especially abundant in the lower part of the limestone section.  Lenses of discontinuous coarse-grained bioclastic beds rich in crinoid fragments (up to 3.5 cm long) are especially abundant low in the section.

The Paleozoic sandstone, which overlies the limestone, is most abundant volumetrically where down-faulted in the eastern and northern project area where over 110 meters are exposed.  The lower zone of the sandstone is shaly and hosts lenticular limestone pods for up to 60 meters above the contact.  This zone is capped by very dark-grey, possibly carbonaceous, thin silty sand with locally abundant dark-grey chert nodules.  In hand specimen and outcrop, the uppermost sandstone is a coarse-grained, moderately sorted quartz sandstone that strongly resembles a well-indurated orthoquartzite.  In the Golden Trail Project area, most of the porosity within the uppermost sandstone is filled by secondary silica and locally the sandstone is silicified, especially along northwest-striking faults.

High-angle normal faults divide the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks into discrete fault-bound blocks.  Bedding dips are very gentle and horizontal orientations are common in outcrop.  The oldest normal faults strike about N50-60°E and dip at angles up to 75 degrees and greater to the northeast.  These older fault-bound blocks are cut by N20-65°E (mode about N40°E) very high angle normal faults of variable displacements up to 110 meters.  These northeast-striking faults drop blocks down to the southeast, east of the central project area, and blocks are dropped down to the west in the western project area.  A thin northeast striking horst block separates these domains in the central project area.

The most strongly altered and mineralized host rocks are in the northeastern hanging wall of northwest-striking quartz veins.  Northeastern project area rocks are generally more strongly altered than the southern.  Northeast-striking quartz-calcite veins are thin, cut the northwest-striking veins, contain few gangue minerals, and host only minor gold values at the current level of exposure.  Alteration extends outward from the faults and quartz veins along bedding planes and joints in the limestone host rocks.  Immediately adjacent to the veins, limestone is altered along the fault and bedding planes to medium to dark reddish brown jasperoid and sandstone is silicified and porosity filled by quartz.  Distal to the veins, silica is less abundant but the limestone is decalcified and locally enriched in dolomite and other secondary minerals.

The most continuous of the northwest-striking veins, is up to three meters wide and has a strike length of over 1,200 meters.  An alteration zone with anomalous gold and pathfinder elements averaging 30 meters wide parallels the vein.  The vein is continuous except where displaced by northeast-striking normal faults, which, in west to east map view, progressively move the vein location further to the north.  Declines and shafts developed along the vein indicate that it dips at 75 degrees and greater angles to the northeast.  Cavities are common and some host drusy quartz with calcite and iron oxide coatings. Thin quartz-calcite stringers and stockworks are common adjacent to and especially in the hanging-wall of the vein.

Northwest-striking vein gangue mineralogy includes several generations of quartz, calcite, dolomite and iron oxides.  Pseudomorphic casts of probably oxidized gangue minerals are commonly preserved within quartz in the veins and give the vein a spongy texture.  Elongate and acicular casts may have held stibiconite, stibnite or other acicular minerals.  Limonite pseudomorphs with preserved striations were probably pyrite and chalcopyrite.  Chromium-rich phengitic muscovite is reported from a shaft developed into one of these veins (Lapointe, 1991, p.78).

The northwest-striking vein may locally host granitic intrusions.  A minor outcrop of a metamorphic hornfels lithology occurs along the northwest-striking vein margins in the eastern project area.  The holocrystalline lithology consists of abundant 1 to 5 mm biotite, iron oxides, and trace metamorphic monticellite in a matrix of milky calcite.  Biotite and monticellite are locally rimmed with chlorite.  This alteration type is typical of contact metamorphism of limestone surrounding granitic intrusions.

Due to the presence of gold and pathfinder elements in multiple Paleozoic sedimentary lithologies and structural zones in a similar geologic, geophysical and geochemical setting to the major gold deposits of northeastern Nevada’s Carlin Trend, Gold Reef believes that a Carlin style target may exist on the Golden Trail Prospect. A secondary target includes zones of replacement and decalcification in sedimentary wall rocks adjacent to fault zones and jasperoid occurrences.

Gold mineralization exposed in surface outcrops at the Golden Trail Project is hosted in veins, fault breccia which parallels veins, jasperoid bodies and zones of replacement and decalcification in sedimentary wall rock adjacent to the veins as well as in altered Paleozoic limestone, siltstone, sandstone, chert and conglomerate within the claim block.  Similar to most of the major gold mines in northeastern Nevada, gold mineralization appears to be micron-sized occurrences as no visible mineralization has been documented in any of the samples collected and analyzed.  The veins appear to be fault controlled and mineralization likely occurred during faulting. The Paleozoic sediments are displaced across the veins.  Locally, older veins are brecciated and cemented by younger veins.   The zones of replacement are locally broad and follow favorable horizons in the bedded limestone host rocks.  Additionally, zones of strong silicification within the sandstone overlying the limestones could act as local aquitards or caps to mineralizing fluids, and concentrate the mineralizing fluids beneath these caps.

Gold is associated with decalcification, silicification, and highly anomalous concentrations of antimony, arsenic, lead, silver and zinc and locally anomalous mercury, molybdenum, and copper.  This association of alteration and geochemistry is typical of Carlin style mineralization, polymetallic vein and replacement deposits and distal with respect to distal-disseminated, skarn, and porphyry related deposits with the region.

The screen shot "Geologic 1" (left) depicts anomalous silver distribution layered onto the geologic map of the Golden Trail area.

Any of the 1,070 surface samples at Golden Trail can be accessed through Metal Miners Plus© for any of the 30+ elements to illustrate the sample analysis simultaneously with the sample site location relative to lithology, structure or alteration together or as separate layers including a picture of the sampled outcrop.  The screen shot "Geologic 2" (left) shows surface sample EC14E B212 with the GPS coordinates and geologic description and the complete analytical results.  This particular sample ran 9.04 grams per tonne gold and 109.9 grams per tonne silver.  A picture of the sample site as shown can be viewed simultaneously thus enhancing the geologist’s ability to ensure the description and identification is accurate.

GRN has received final terrain-corrected gravity maps and ground magnetics of the area covered by the claims.

A detailed gravity survey and ground magnetic surveys on the Golden Trail Project area were conducted by Magee Geophysical Services LLC, Reno, Nevada.   The results of these surveys show geophysical anomalies which closely correspond with known veining, alteration zones, mineralization and structures, which were determined by detailed geologic mapping.

Gold Reef completed a first phase drilling program to ascertain the possibility of discovering an intrusive source at depth, which could be related to the mineralization found in surface exposures. None of the holes penetrated intrusive rocks, but all four holes encountered sedimentary units metamorphosed into hornfels that are typical in the nearby Contact and Delano areas.  Significant drill hole results include a 20 foot intercept in hornfels in GT12 from 655 to 675 feet, which averaged 0.236 gpt Au.  In addition thick sections of significantly anomalous zinc were encountered in a hornfels section of each drill hole as shown in the table.

Each of the zones shown in the table had significantly elevated vanadium including a 160 foot interval from 1790 to 1950 feet in GT17, which averaged 589 ppm V. Molybdenum was also highly anomalous in each hole consistent with the zones with anomalous zinc content.

Gold Reef geologists will continue to analyze the geochemical data in conjunction with the thin section study to vector into future drilling targets.  The table at left summarizes data from the four holes compared to surface sampling results. Although additional study is required it appears that gold is significantly more anomalous in GT8 and GT9 than in GT12 and GT17, whereas the base metals stay relatively the same.