Swift, Nevada
Swift is a Carlin-style gold project along the northwest projection of the Cortez Trend in Nevada and is located on the Battle Mountain-Eureka trend approximately 10 kilometers northwest of Barrick Gold’s Pipeline deposit. The Swift property contains altered upper plate rocks with anomalous gold mineralization, as well as pathfinder elements, and is adjacent to the historic Elder Creek mine. EMX acquired the property through staking in 2017, and has completed geochemical sampling and new structural interpretations that have identified untested gold targets in unexposed lower plate host rocks along fold hinges. EMX has entered into an option agreement with Ridgeline Minerals Corp. (“Ridgeline”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Carlin-Type Holding Ltd (“CTH”) a privately-held British Columbia corporation. The Agreement provides EMX with a 9.9% interest in CTH, and for each Project a 3.25% production royalty and advance royalty and milestone payments. See Company news release dated May 30, 2019 for more information.
The Swift property contains altered and weakly mineralized exposures of upper plate rocks. EMX and previous workers have interpreted these rocks, as well as the mineralization at the adjacent Elder Creek mine, to represent leakage from mineralization hosted in more favorable lower plate host rocks. To date, EMX has completed reconnaissance stream sediment surveys, rock chip sampling and importantly, new structural mapping to understand the magnitude of syn- to post-mineralization Tertiary extension. This work identified targets in favorable structural horizons and at structural intersections in the lower plate rocks. Five historic holes drilled at Swift intercepted lower plate rocks with anomalous gold mineralization that flank EMX’s structural target zones.
Previous exploration targeted lower-plate rocks beneath Elder Creek, but neglected the 35° eastward post-mineral tilting in the Shoshone Range. Vertical holes drilled from Elder Creek appear to have drilled into a separate fault block before intersecting the Roberts Mountains Formation.
EMX is targeting 1) untested lower-plate rocks down-plunge from the Elder Creek Mine, along the projection of the Goat Ridge window anticline, 2) shallow tests of lower-plate rocks beneath sulfide-bearing alteration in the upper plate near the Mill Creek Window, and 3) mineralization in lower-plate rocks beneath surface alteration and a multi-element geochemical anomaly at Ferris Creek.
Note: The nearby mines and deposits in the region provide context for EMX’s Project, which occurs in a similar geologic setting, but this is not necessarily indicative that the project hosts similar mineralization.