American Bonanza Gold Mining Corp - Bonanza
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PAMLICO PROJECT

           

SUMMARY

 General        Location        Geology        Past Work Program        Recently Completed Programs

Current Work Program         Future Work Program

  • Property covers +2 sq. miles (+500 HA) - 95% controlled through option/earn-in agreement.

  • Walker Lane past producer - approx. 50,000 oz Au at Bonanza grades.

  • Limited modern exploration focused on disseminated, low grade targets.

  • Bonanza acquired the property at end of 1998, completed surface and underground mapping and sampling, 3-D (Vulcan) modeling, and limited initial drill program.

  • Over 6 miles (10 km) strike of productive veins with numerous high grade targets.

  • Underground sampling identified near surface B0 target where the best of nine (9) grab samples over 100m of dip and +50m of strike returned 1.98 opt (67.8 g/t), 1.01 opt (34.7 g/t) 0.92 opt (31.4 g/t), 0.65 opt (22.3 g/t) Au. Nearby, a different, parallel vein at surface returned 1.75 opt (59.9 g/t), 0.86 opt (29.4 g/t) Au - otherwise unexplored.

  • Initial drill program summer 1999 returned three (3) narrow vein (0.6m true width) intercepts grading 20.4 opt (701 g/t), 3.9 opt (134 g/t), and 1.2 opt (42 g/t) Au. These intercepts are approx. 100m downdip of turn-of-century stopes.

  • Minimum four (4) targets drill ready.

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General

The Pamlico project in Nevada is comprised of 63 patented and unpatented claims covering 5 square kilometres which are prospective for gold.  Pamlico was subject to a cash payment of US$25,000 due November 2001 which was deferred and paid in 2002.  In 2002, a cash payment of US$150,000 was made.  In November 2003 the Corporation made a cash payment of US$150,000 and deferred the final remaining cash payment of US$525,000 until November 2004.  The property is subject to a 1 percent net profits interest royalty after the final cash payment.  Pamlico has no associated work commitments.

G.F. McArthur, P.Geo. (“McArthur”), an independent consulting geologist of Vancouver, British Columbia prepared a report dated September 8, 2000 (the “McArthur Report”) on the properties which the Corporation acquired in the “Bonanza Acquisition” in late 2000, prepared in accordance with what was then the proposed National Instrument 43-101, Companion Policy 43-101 CP and Form 43-101 F(1) Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, as described in British Columbia Securities Commission’s Notice and Interpretation Note 2000/12 dated March 22, 2000; the National Instrument came into force on February 1, 2001.

Following is a summary of the McArthur Report on the Pamlico property.

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Location

The Pamlico property is located in Mineral County, 15 kilometres ESE of Hawthorne, Nevada. It is accessible by vehicle travelling 16 kilometres east on US 95, then 13 kilometres SSW on four-wheel-drive dirt roads.

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Geology

The Pamlico property is located in south central Nevada within the Walker Lane mineral trend.  The Pamlico project is underlain by folded and imbricately thrusted Paleozoic eugeoclinal shales and cherts or miogeoclinal carbonates.  Mesozoic and Cenozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks occur locally as erosional remnants. Minor Mesozoic and Cenozoic plutonic rocks intrude these older sequences locally at Pamlico.

The Pamlico property covers numerous historic shafts and adits and work-to-date has confirmed the existence of high-grade gold mineralization. Pamlico has several drill targets ready to test. Pamlico has already been drill-tested by the Corporation (including its subsidiaries) and high-grade mineralization (greater than 34 g/t or 1 opt) has been intersected in drilling.

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Past Work Program

At Pamlico, only one company has done any modern work. Cimarron Minerals Ltd. (formerly Cactus West) completed a program of geological mapping, rock sampling and Mag/ VLF and IP geophysical surveys. They drilled 50 reverse circulation holes totaling 4738 metres (15,545 feet) on geological, geochemical and geophysical targets. The Cimarron drill holes contained a small number of 1.5 metre (5 foot) intervals grading 8.2 to 58.3 g/t (0.24 to 1.7 opt) gold within predominantly unmineralized wallrock. The American Mines Handbook (1998) gives a resource estimate by Cimarron of “indicated partially drilled resource” of 45,000 ounces gold in 900,000 tons averaging 0.05 opt gold.

These historic resource estimates are viewed by the Corporation as mineralized zones representing three-dimensional gold geochemical anomalies. These anomalies are used to focus the Corporation’s exploration efforts onto high-grade underground mineable targets, versus the previous emphasis of exploration which targeted low-grade bulk mineable mineralization.

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Recently Completed Work Programs

The Corporation has completed a program comprising regional and detailed geological mapping, surface rock sampling (1,353 samples), soil sampling (638 samples) and underground mapping and sampling (385 samples). The data were digitized and entered into Bonanza’s GIS model and Vulcan 3-D model to guide the drilling program. Targeted areas were tested by 16 reverse circulation drill holes totaling 1,692 metres (5,550 feet).

Of the approximately 300 old workings on the property, about 50 were extensive enough to warrant underground mapping in addition to sampling. A number of high results were returned from the Central Mine and the Main Zone areas, consequently follow-up detailed underground mapping and sampling focussed on these two areas.

In the Main Zone area, numerous adits and shafts indicate this was the primary historic mining center producing approximately 50,000 ounces of gold. The Central Mine and Main Zone areas were the focus of the Corporation’s drilling. In the Main Zone, drilling targeted known productive veins approximately 90 metres down dip from the historic workings. Eight holes were drilled along a 230 metre, roughly linear, fence. Three holes encountered narrow veins approximately 0.6 metres thick, grading 42 g/t, 134 g/t and 700 g/t gold. The first intercept represents a previously unknown vein while the latter two intercepts represent the down dip extension of the known productive veins.

The Central Mine B-Zero target area is near the center of the property, approximately 1.6 kilometres northeast of the Main Zone. Bonanza drilled five holes in a roughly square pattern on 150 metre centers. This preliminary drilling returned discouraging results with no significant gold values and little vein material. It is presently thought that the holes were drilled into a faulted out block. Three additional holes were drilled 400 metres to the west on a 200 metre linear fence to test a second area of veining. These holes also returned discouraging results.

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Current Work Program

During 2003 the Corporation completed an early-stage drilling program totaling 1,608 feet in eight holes, and was designed to confirm and expand mineralization encountered previously in the underground workings in the Central Mine Area and in underground workings and previous drilling in the north end of the Main Zone.

Encouraging results of 55.5 grams per tonne (1.62 ounces of gold per ton) over 1 metre (3 feet) and 95.6 grams per tonne (2.79 ounces of gold per ton) over 0.3 metre (1 foot) were obtained. Given the early stage of the exploration drilling, these results are considered encouraging. Four distinct mineralized structures were targeted and all four were encountered by the drilling, with two structures returning significant mineralization as described above. Several intervals testing structures did not return high grade gold, but contain anomalous gold grades between 1.0 g/t gold and 0.5 g/t gold which suggests potential for these structures in other areas.

Gold mineralization is restricted to structures, with little to no gold mineralization present in the wallrocks. As a result, all eight drill holes were pre-drilled with a reverse circulation drilling rig and the Main Zone structural targets were then drilled with a HQ core drilling rig. A total of 1,120 feet of reverse circulation was drilled, along with a total of 488 feet of “spot” core drilled through the target zones.

The drill holes in the Main zone were located adjacent to reverse circulation holes drilled by Bonanza in 1999. Surveyed underground workings were used to position drill holes in the Central Mine area. Drilling in the Main Pamlico Mines area targeted known productive veins about 90 metres (300 feet) down-dip from the deepest working in the area. The five holes were drilled from two drill pads, and were designed to encounter target structures between 10 and 20 metres along strike from previously know data points. The two high grade intercepts were encountered in this area. These Main Zone veins remain open to expansion along strike and dip.

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Future Work Programs

The Pamlico gold mineralization occurs within a package of sedimentary and volcanic rocks, in silicified faults, epithermal quartz veins and silicified brecciated lithologic contacts. Future drilling will target these mineralized structures to follow up along strike and dip from these current results and previously drilled mineralized zones. The Pamlico veins and mineralized faults occur along Walker Lane faults and are typically moderately dipping, curviplanar, and locally braided. Silicification is the most prevalent wallrock alteration.

Several undrilled high quality targets are present on the Pamlico property, and exploration efforts currently focus on refining drill targets in these areas and compilation of the new drill data and modeling to evaluate these targets and plan future drilling to explore new targets and follow up these recent results.  The focus of future drilling programs will be areas where thicker veins may be present, and one potential bulk tonnage target.

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