Little Hat

Little Hat Mountain is the second highest topographic feature on the property after Mexican Hat (MH) Mountain. It rises 100m above the valley floor, 40m shy of the elevation of Mexican Hat. Little Hat is underlain by the same peralkaline Tertiary volcanic rocks, and has a strong enrichment of the same suite of pathfinder elements that characterizes the Mexican Hat Deposit. These include gold, silver, copper, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, mercury, sulfur, strontium, selenium and tellurium.

Distinct magnetic anomalies underly both Mexican Hat and Little Hat, defined by a strong magnetic low surrounded by a magnetic high. This is interpreted to represent an area where naturally occurring magnetic minerals in the host rocks (like magnetite, ilmenite, pyrrhotite) are strongly oxidized to hematite (a non-magnetic mineral) by hydrothermal fluids. Hematite is the dominant mineral associated with gold mineralization at Mexican Hat, spawning the phrase “if it’s red it runs” often heard by geologists during drill campaigns. All of the mineralization encountered at Mexican Hat contains very elevated concentrations of hematite in fractured rocks.

The size of the magnetic anomaly at Little Hat (16 hectares) and its similarity in form and intensity to the magnetic anomaly which underlies Mexican Hat (20 hectares) is encouraging. The distribution of gold pathfinder elements is very encouraging as essentially no work has been done on Little Hat. As such, the dispersion and intensity of this geochemical anomaly is natural, whereas the geochemical anomaly associated with Mexican Hat has had decades of drilling, trenching and road building exposing mineralized material, this creating an enhanced dispersion signature.

Table 1. Peak concentrations of gold pathfinder elements in soils.

Nd = Not detected.

An initial four drill holes are planned to test the Little Hat geophysical anomaly once permits are approved. This will be the first drilling to be completed on this exploration target.