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Summary The FUSE property consists of 148 claims covering 4.8 square miles (12.4 sq km) along the Cortez Gold Trend in Eureka County, Nevada (Figure 1). Miranda Gold believes that the Cortez Trend is best characterized as a west north-west belt of gold deposits internal to the larger northwest-southeast Battle Mountain-Eureka Trend. From west northwest to east southeast the Cortez Trend includes: the Pipeline Mine complex (+20M oz Au), the Cortez Mine (1.7M oz Au), the Cortez Hills deposit (+8.5M oz Au), and the Pediment deposit (1.5M oz Au). The ET Blue project, southeast of Cortez Hills, reportedly has multiple ore-grade holes which indicates that the Cortez Trend extends southeasterly into Horse Creek Valley towards the FUSE and Red Hill properties. Drilling by Barrick Gold in close proximity to the JD window, 6 miles (10km) from ET Blue, returned an intercept of 80ft of 0.146 oz Au/t (24.4m of 4.987g Au/t) that included an interval of 45ft of 0.237 oz Au/t (13.7m of 8.105g Au/t). Miranda considers this robust drill intercept a validation of its east south east projection of the Cortez Trend into JD window. The FUSE property offers a similar pediment covered, sediment-hosted gold target on the underexplored southeast projection of the Cortez Trend.
Location The FUSE property is located in Horse Creek Valley, 90 miles (144km) southwest of Elko, Nevada. The claims cover pediment flanking the east side of the Cortez Mountains on lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The property is approximately 18 miles (29km) east of the +8.5 million ounce Cortez Hills gold deposit and 9 miles (14km) east of the historic Buckhorn Mine. The majority of the Horse Creek Valley and Pine Valley is staked by the Cortez Joint Venture (Barrick Gold 60% / Kennecott 40%), Barrick Gold, or Idaho Resources-Quicksilver Phenomenon (owner of a 1.5% royalty on all Cortez Joint Venture production). The Miranda FUSE claims are adjacent to the Cortez Joint Venture's South Buckhorn Project and Idaho Resource's Powder Keg claims that were reportedly located over a mercury soil gas anomaly, and subsequently leased to the Cortez Joint Venture. Geology The FUSE claims, although completely covered by pediment gravels, may overlie lower-plate carbonate rocks sub-cropping in the basement. The extent of lower-plate window beneath pediment gravel in Horse Creek Valley is not defined. Its presence is inferred by: Devonian carbonate exposures in the JD Window to the south of FUSE, by the reported lower-plate limestone drilled under gravel by Anglo Gold several miles to the west of FUSE in the south Buckhorn area, and by the ET Blue discovery to the west. The JD Window contains a thick sequence of upper Devonian carbonate rocks that may similar to those rocks hosting Cortez Hills. It is reasonable to infer that the bedrock highs under pediment cover on the FUSE property could be lower-plate carbonate rock. Although the depth to bedrock is unknown on the FUSE property, gravity data indicates that the claims are located on buried horsts or structural highs within the basement. The gravity map indicates pediment cover is relatively thin (Figure 2). Placer Dome (previous to the Barrick take over) had commented in talks that the west-northwest structural regime is important for localizing mineralization at Cortez Hills and that it is also an important deposit-scale predictor of gold systems within the greater Cortez Trend. Numerous gravity-based structural projections in the FUSE area suggest a series of northeast, north-northwest and west-northwest structures intersect within or adjacent to the boundaries of the FUSE claims. High quality gold deposits in the Cortez Trend have been recently discovered under pediment cover within valleys. This association of large gold deposits with pediment areas may be related to the reactivation of the primary tectonic framework that creates the younger Basin and Range geomorphology. The Horse Creek Valley-Pine Valley area represents a geologic setting similar to Crescent Valley, which hosts the Pipeline-Cortez Mine complexes. The recent discovery of the +8.5 million ounce deposit at Cortez Hills and the ET Blue "discovery" supports additional exploration on the southeast extension of the Cortez Trend and explains the exploration activity by Barrick Gold and Idaho Resources in Horse Creek Valley.
Exploration History In the late 1980's, Cominco American Ltd. operated the Buckhorn Mine, 10 miles (16km) west of Fuse. They produced ~300,000 ounces of gold from epithermal, Miocene-age, basalt-hosted deposits. Royal Gold and Anglo Gold conducted exploration for additional epithermal deposits south of Buckhorn. Upon drilling altered lower-plate carbonate rocks beneath pediment cover on their TYRE claims, the focus of Anglo's exploration turned to sediment-hosted gold deposits. The property was vended to the Cortez Joint Venture which was active on the adjacent ET Blue project where ore-grade intercepts in lower-plate carbonate rocks have been a focus of rumors and discussion within the exploration community since late 2002. The Red Hill-JD Window area, 9 miles (14km) to the southwest of the FUSE property, has been actively explored since the mid 1960's by numerous companies including Idaho Resources, Homestake, U.S. Borax, Asarco, Atlas, Battle Mountain Gold, and Pathfinder Exploration. US Borax was successful in delineating a small (40,500 oz at a grade of 0.043 oz Au/t) gold resource. Pathfinder drilled gold mineralization in an area called the West-Offset (60 ft of 0.120 oz Au/t / 18.3m of 4.1g Au/t) The Cortez Joint Venture has reported in recent talks concerning Cortez Hills that mercury soil gas surveys are a vector to covered mineralization. Idaho Resources (as "Quicksilver Phenomenon") conducted mercury soil gas surveys in the Horse Creek Valley-Pine Valley area in 2004 and have staked and leased the Powder Keg claims to the Cortez Joint Venture as a result. The FUSE claims surround and adjoin the Powder Keg claims on the east. Due to pediment cover, there is no alteration exposed on the FUSE property. However, within the JD Window, a large alteration cell is present that includes widespread silicification and decalcification within Devonian carbonate rocks. Upper Devonian carbonate rocks are the host for Cortez Hills and are the inferred host for alteration cells reported at the ET Blue and TYRE area prospects of the Cortez Joint Venture, west of FUSE. The alteration sequence at FUSE, if a buried gold system is present, will be typical of Carlin-type deposits. In general these deposits are characterized by a central silica zone, a proximal clay-decalcified zone, and a distal carbon enrichment zone. Lower-plate carbonate rocks may occur beneath pediment cover at FUSE given the results at ET Blue, the Anglo Gold TYRE prospects to the west and the proximity to the JD Window to the south. The lower-plate here would most likely be part of the Nevada Formation including McColley Canyon Formation, Denay Limestone, or Wenban Limestone. The former are hosts in the Goldbar District and the latter is the host for Cortez Hills. Joint Venture Exploration / 2007 Plans Miranda completed a mercury soil gas survey on the FUSE project and defined mercury anomalies which correlate with prominent breaks in the gravity data. The mercury anomalies and gravity breaks are believed to represent faulting, beneath pediment cover. Within or near the margins of the claim block, several prominent north-northwest and west-northwest structures intersect. In late 2006 the Cortez Joint Venture ("Cortez"), Miranda's joint venture partner on the FUSE claims, completed 1,860 ft (567.1m) of reverse circulation drilling in one vertical hole (PP06-01). The hole was designed to test a coincident gravity high / mercury gas high for prospective lower-plate carbonate rocks beneath pediment cover (Figure 3). The hole intersected bedrock at 780 ft (237.8m) and ended in upper-plate siliceous rocks. Significant gold was not encountered. Cortez will continue to evaluate other exploration opportunities on the FUSE claims in 2007.
This disclosure contains information about properties which we have no right to explore or mine. We advise U.S. investors that the SEC's mining operations disclosure guidelines generally preclude disclosing information of this time in documents filed with the SEC as we must focus on properties in which we do have an interest. U.S. investors are cautioned that mineral deposits on adjacent properties are not necessarily indicative of mineral deposits on our properties. |
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