The Chert Cliff Property consists of 9 mineral claims, covering approximately 185 acres, located in the Gold Bar District about 40 miles northwest of Eureka, Eureka County, Nevada. Gold Bar, including the property area, occurs within the southern section of the productive "Battle Mountain Trend" of gold deposits.
Subject to third party net smelter royalties, the Chert Cliff Property is 100% owned by Columbus and has been leased to privately held Platte River Gold Inc. To maintain the lease, Platte River is obligated to make escalating annual lease payments to Columbus totaling US$142,000 over the term of the lease and must pay Columbus US$100,000 in Platte River common shares. Platte River is also responsible for all maintenance payments and is required to make exploration expenditures totaling US$275,000. Columbus is entitled to net smelter return royalties on production of between 2% and 3%.
Gold was discovered at Chert Cliff in the mid 1960's during the initial wave of prospecting for carbonate-hosted gold deposits following recognition of the Carlin model in 1961. The most intensive work was carried out by Asarco in the 1980's and succeeded in outlining the Chert Cliff gold deposit as presently known. The Asarco drill program delineated a gold deposit at Chert Cliff containing approximately 1.4 million tons grading 0.04 ounces gold per ton (56,000 ounces).
Geology of the claims area consists of dolomitic siltstones of the Mississippian Webb formation overriding massive Devonian limestones in thrust fault contact. Disseminated gold occurs in hydrothermally altered Webb siltstones and jasperoid.
The Chert Cliff deposit remains open to the west and Asarco geologists believed it could be expanded significantly by adding additional drilling in that area. Anomalous to ore grade intercepts were also encountered in isolated drill holes north and east of the resource area but were never followed up.
