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The Eagle Basin project consists of seventy-two unpatented mining claims (2.3 square miles) staked by Redstar covering an area of strongly-altered Late Eocene volcanic rocks in central Nevada, 45 miles west of Eureka. The project lies along a northerly-trending corridor encompassing, with few exceptions, the largest gold (+Ag) deposits in Nevada (>>2 Moz Au). This corridor is believed by Redstar to represent a major continental-scale crustal boundary along which mineralization has been focused. From south to north major gold systems/districts along this corridor include: Bullfrog, Goldfield, Tonopah, Manhattan, Round Mountain, Northumberland, Cortez-Pipeline, the Meikle-Goldstrike-Gold Quarry portion of the Carlin trend, and Jerritt Canyon. Eagle Basin lies between the Cortez-Pipeline and Northumberland portions of the corridor.
The Eagle Basin alteration zone is largely concealed by a thin veneer of post-mineralization gravels but is known to cover at least 1.6 square miles (4.3 km2). Alteration consists of strong chalcedonic silicification and argillization with local quartz and chalcedony veins and disseminated sulfides. A series of northwest-trending silicified zones across a width of at least 3,300 feet occurs in the core of the system, with individual zones up to 500 feet in length and about 20 feet in width. Vuggy textures, alunite and pyrophyllite (identified by spectrometry), elongate silicified zones and the trace-element signature (see below) indicate a high-sulfidation epithermal system.
An intriguing aspect of the Eagle Basin project is that it lies within a roughly circular depression about 3-miles in diameter. The depression is believed to be the result of relatively easily-eroded altered rocks and possibly a caldera-like collapse feature caused by magmatic/volcanic activity. The circular depression also corresponds to a unique circular magnetic feature within the regional Late Eocene volcanic terrane (proprietary detailed aeromagnetic survey; see figure). Preliminary rock-chip sampling indicates anomalous gold (to 170 ppb) and a trace-element signature consistent with a magmatic high-sulfidation system possibly overlying porphyry-type Cu-Au-Mo mineralization. Anomalous trace elements include As (to 332 ppm), Mo (to 100 ppm), Cu (to 163 ppm), Pb, Te, Bi, Sn, Ag, Sb (to 87 ppm) and Hg (to 95 ppm).
Previous exploration has been limited to a single percussion drilling program in 1986-1987 by Dome Exploration. Sixteen shallow (<400 feet) holes were drilled, with several intersecting anomalous gold to 266 ppb.
The strength of the alteration system, the trace-element signature and the limited drill testing present an opportunity for discovering a high-sulfidation type epithermal gold deposit or a porphyry-style Cu-Au-Mo deposit similar to the gold deposits in the Paradise Peak district in west-central Nevada (1.6 Moz Au produced, 1986-1994).
Redstar's plans for Eagle Basin include additional field work (sampling, mapping), with the results integrated with detailed aremagnetic data to develop first-phase drill targets.
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