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Crestview Property
The Crestview Property is located within the Cortez-Pipeline sector of the Battle Mountain Gold Trend, Nevada, about 1.5 kilometres (1 mile) south of the Gold Acres open pit gold mine and 1 kilometre (0.6 miles) southwest of the 24 million ounce Pipeline gold deposit. Both Gold Acres and Pipeline are operated by Barrick Gold. Barrick also owns the nearby Cortez Hills gold deposit discovered in 2003, which hosts reserves of more than 10 million ounces of gold. Subject to third party net smelter returns royalties, the Crestview Property is 100% controlled by Columbus.
In December 2007, Columbus entered into an agreement with Barrick Gold Exploration, a subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation, to explore and develop the Utah Clipper and Crestview properties. Under the terms of the agreement, Barrick can earn an initial 60% interest in the two properties by incurring US$6 million in exploration expenditures over a six year period.
Geology
The Crestview Property covers a portion of the Roberts Mountain thrust with metamorphosed lower plate limestone and limey siltstone in the footwall of the thrust. The principal geologic targets at Crestview are classical "Carlin" or "Pipeline" style bulk mineable, disseminated gold deposits or high grade, structurally controlled vein deposits in "lower plate" carbonates.
Past Work
Historical exploration at Crestview includes surface sampling and four drill holes by Newmont in 1987, five drill holes by ASARCO in 1994 and two drill holes by Agnico-Eagle in 2007. The Agnico-Eagle drill holes consisted of two vertical rotary holes drilled to 518.2 m (1,700 feet) and 762 m (2,500 feet) which intersected favorable lower plate carbonate rocks at 198.1 m (650 feet) and 320 m (1,050 feet) respectively. Both holes had highly elevated zinc and arsenic, and gold was anomalous in several intervals but less than 100 ppb.
Planned Program
The 2008 work program (in agregate at both Crestview and the adjacent Utah Clipper Property) will be composed of data review and compilation, supplemental soil sampling, re-logging cuttings and core, seismic surveys, district scale geological modeling and drilling. Drilling is scheduled to commence in November 2009.
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