Jan 23 2015
Comstock Mining Inc. announced today that it has engineered an at-grade crossing that enables it to more efficiently access mine areas east of the Lucerne Resource Area without any major infrastructural changes to the State Route 342.
The modification allows the Company's haul trucks to move material from the East-side Lucerne resource area across SR 342 to the Company's American Flat processing facilities. The Company is in the process of assessing mine opportunities and preparing mine plans for parcels to the east of SR 342. Storey County's Board of Commissioners found, unanimously, that these plans conform to the Company's existing Special Use Permit N0. 2000-222-A-5.
The Company has already performed an extensive amount of environmental and cultural asset impact assessments on the East-side patented properties. Additionally, the Company is assessing the amount of gold and silver grades contained in the legacy Silver Hill waste dumps from past surface and underground operations. The Company recently completed soil sampling of this material and, depending on the results, these waste dumps could represent a significant source of mineralized material for processing while also enabling significant, concurrent environmental reclamation of previous dumpsites.
The East-side of Lucerne encompasses a nearly half-mile long segment of the Gold Hill/Silver City extension of the Comstock Lode and already has an extensive amount of drilling. This includes historic and more recent drilling that represents an aggregate total footage of 270,000 feet (that is, over 51 miles), that the Company is using to evaluate the eastward projection of the Silver City fault zone.
Lucerne's, near-surface, mineralized area represents the Company's most significant, ongoing development, with active drilling and development in process. The historic Woodville Bonanza and the Chute Zone, identified in 2012, both represent near surface, intermediate and deeper, higher grade, primarily oxidized mineralized targets that have been intersected in drill holes to depths of about 800 feet.
Comstock Mining's Chief Executive Officer, orrado De Gasperis commented: "This design represents a breakthrough in our planning for efficient expansion of the Lucerne mine while allowing for concurrent processing of mineralized material and reclamations. Doing it profitably is a significant net benefit for us and another example of integrating mining activities with concurrent, reclamation actions."