Nevada Eagle Target

Geology & Magnetics

Southern Target

Structure Intercepts

Central Target

Goldfield was once the center of urban sophistication when it was Nevada's largest city in 1907. This city once had a population of 30,000 with uncounted stores and saloons. The most famous one, Tex Rickard's Northern, had a bar so long 80 tenders were necessary. 

The all-time high in production was $11,000,000, but this phenomenal figure dropped to $5,000,000 by 1912.  Nearly $80,000,000 in gold was mined in Goldfield until 1940.

Goldfield, Nevada, was arguably the last real US gold rush of this century - at least in terms of overall production, which was significant.  In 1908, Goldfield was the largest gold mining district in the United States.

Location:  The Goldfield West (GFW) property is located about 7 kilometers west of Goldfield, Esmeralda County, Nevada.  The claims lie within portions of sections 5, 8, 16,17 and 20, T3S, R42E, MDB&M.

Land Status: Bonaventure holds the property via unpatented mining claims.   A total of 49 unpatented lode claims are currently held.  MinQuest holds a 100 percent interest in these claims. 

History:  The GFW area has been explored for gold and silver since the late 1800's.  A small production of gold and silver came from the Nevada Eagle mine just north of the property, in the early 1900's.  Recent exploration history has been site specific.  Bear Creek, Kennecott, Placer Amex, FMC and U.S. Borax have all explored the northern part of the claim block.  The southern half of the claims have been explored by Freeport, Echo Bay, Placer Dome and Bow Valley.  North Mining was the last group to explore within the claim block. 

A total of 154 holes (including air track) have been drilled in an area of roughly 5 square miles.  The drilling has indicated a resource of about 140,000 ounces of gold in two pods.  Surface sampling has obtained values up to 14 g/t gold and 200 g/t silver from structures.  Gold grades encountered in drilling were as high as 5 g/t over 3 meter widths, but averaged much less.  Mapping has been completed on 1:10,000 scale.  MinQuest has identified the following drilling programs in the area.

Airborne magnetics and minor broad dipole IP surveys have been completed over the area as well as rock and soil geochemistry. 

Geology and Mineralization:  The oldest rocks in the area are Cambrian limestones and dolomites which are overlain by volcanic tuffs and flows of Tertiary age.  The volcanics contain interbedded volcanoclastic sediments which host the bulk of the gold mineralization.  Post mineral gravels and basalt flows cover much of the area.  Mineralization occurs within jasperoids developed within the limestone, quartz veins and stockworks in the volcanic tuffs and disseminated within sandy volcanoclastic sediments.  Best grades occur within structures with quartz and sulphides.  The largest tonnages occur within the tuffaceous sandstone units. 

Unlike the main Goldfield District to the east which produced 5 million ounces of gold, the Goldfield West property has received little attention.  Exploration has been confined to small drilling campaigns in the 1980?s and 1990?s. 

The latest known drilling, by North Limited, partly defined a sandstone hosted gold resource.  North?s estimate was 8.0 million tons averaging 1.0 g/t gold in two separate areas.  MinQuest has given this resource a size and grade of 1.0 million tons averaging 1.7g/t.

Targets:  The resource areas are open in three directions and down dip.  There appears to be a large tonnage of 1.0 g/t gold mineralization.  To include this material in an economic resource additional high grade must be found. 

Surface sampling indicates grades of 7-15 g/t gold within high angle feeder faults.  Future drilling should be angled across these potential high grade zones.  The global resource potential of the property is currently thought to be 15 million tons averaging 2.4 g/t gold.

GOLDFIELD WEST PHASE 1 DRILLING SUMMARY

During the summer of 2004, Bonaventure conducted a drilling program on two separate targets at GFW. A total of 7,595 feet (2,316 m) was drilled at the Nevada Eagle and South Zone targets.  Drill hole assays for intercepts over 0.5 ppm gold are listed on the table on the next page of this summary.

A total of 10 holes were drilled at Nevada Eagle.  These holes mostly targeted known mineralization in the immediate area of the mine. NV-1 to 5 were drilled to determine the attitude of a hypothesized controlling feeder fault.  Depending on which intercepts are used, a N40^oW to N58^oW striking, 50-65^o NE dipping fault has been identified.  Highly anomalous gold occurs in a 10-60 foot wide zone across the fault.  A central higher grade section grading up to 3.09 ppm gold and 30.2 ppm silver occurs in 4 of the 5 fault intercepts.  NV-5, the most northerly hole of the 5, had only weakly anomalous gold in the fault possibly indicating less potential to the northwest. Although no high-grade intercepts occur in this drilling, results are encouraging enough to warrant further drilling of the structure down dip and along strike to the southeast.

NV-6 is located 200 feet NW of NV-1 and was drilled to the SW to test a geophysical anomaly as well as the possible extension of the NW structure-hosted mineralization.  Although several sulfide-rich zones were intersected only a 40 foot zone at the bottom of the hole had anomalous gold. Drill hole NV-7 was drilled to the NE from near the collar of NV-6. Like NV-6, only the bottom of the hole contained anomalous gold, although silver grades up to 41.4 ppm occur above.  NV-8, located 350 feet to the SE of NV-1 and drilled to the NE was lost before reaching the NW structure. 

NV-9, located 1,400 feet SE of NV-1 and drilled to the SW targeted parallel NW structures thought to control a NW trending drainage that is untested. This 500 foot deep hole intercepted 250 feet of highly anomalous gold (+0.2 ppm) in 3 separate zones.  The upper zone, consisting of quartz-sulfide veining, is silver-rich. The center zone is the strongest and includes a core of 20 feet of +0.5 ppm gold.  Further testing of this newly discovered fault zone is needed.

NV-10, located 350 feet east of NV-1, is a vertical hole designed to search for basement rocks at depth. The Gemfield deposit, located to the north, occurs in volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks just above granitic basement.  Large volumes of water in the hole limited its depth to 1,000 feet and it failed to reach basement.  A 30 foot intercept of 0.57 ppm gold from 670 to 700 feet may be the Nevada Eagle NW fault or a parallel structure.

Further drilling is recommended of the down-dip and southeast extensions of the Nevada Eagle fault and also of the newly discovered parallel fault zone located SE of the mine.

A total of 13 holes were drilled at the South Zone target area. The drilling emphasized hypothesized north-south trending feeder faults and their intersection with favorable host rocks.  SZ-1 to 6 were drilled on an east-west line that crossed an old drill hole intercept of 10 feet of 5.6 ppm gold. All 6 holes had thick intercepts of +0.5 ppm gold, the thickest being 140 feet in SZ-6.  The mineralization is hosted by a tuffaceous sandstone that dips gently to the west. The highest values are at the base of the unit. Although holes SZ-2, 3 and 4 did not intersect the base of the unit, the other 3 holes had intercept grades ranging from 0.9 to 3.2 ppm gold.  No feeder fault was identified.

SZ-7, 9 and 12 were drilled on an east-west line 200 feet north of the first line on the assumption that mineralization trends north-south. SZ-8 was drilled NE from the same location as SZ-7 and 9 to test an interpreted east-west fault zone.  Although SZ-7 and 9 had 5 to 10 foot intercepts of +0.5 ppm gold, no thick anomalous gold zones were found.  SZ-10 and 11 were drilled on an east-west line 200 feet south of line 1. These holes had no significant intercepts.  It has become apparent that the thick gold mineralization along line 1 is not controlled by north-south structures but by east-west or northwest trending feeder faults.

A single hole (SZ-13) to test a gold bearing structure located 2,000 feet to the NW of SZ-1 was unmineralized.

Further definition drilling of the gold zone found along line 1 is needed to search for the feeder.  The currently defined 400 feet long by 200 feet wide zone should be followed to the west and north to determine its extent.  Because the zone is shallow (less than 250 feet deep), if a significant tonnage of +3.0 ppm gold rock can be found it could be mined by open pit methods.

Besides the drilling recommended above, phase 2 drilling at GFW should test a number of other gold and geophysical anomalies located within the property.

R. Kern   9/15/04