Emergent optioned the Buckskin Rawhide West Property ("BRW" or the "Property") from Jeremy Wire, as announced by a press release on February 6, 2012.  The Property consists of 21 unpatented claims.  It was subsequently acquired by Emergent in 2018.  ​​The Property is an early-stage gold and silver exploration property located in the Walker Lane Gold Belt in the Rawhide Mining District, Mineral County, Nevada.  

 

BRW is located west of and adjacent to Rawhide Mining LLC’s (“RMC”) Rawhide Mine (aka Denton Rawhide Mine). ​Rawhide Mine has produced over 1.8 million ounces of gold and 14.9 million ounces of silver from 1990 through 2019 (source:  Nevada Bureau of Mines Special Publications).  Note that no mineral resources and mineral reserves have yet been delineated on the BRE Property and proximity to Rawhide Mine does not guarantee exploration success.

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The Property is a volcanic-hosted, structurally controlled, epithermal gold-silver target situated in the Walker Lane gold belt of western Nevada. The Walker Lane is a regional shear zone and known gold trend that has hosted large and small historic and recent gold-silver mines in western Nevada, including mines of the Comstock Lode, Tonopah District, and Rawhide District.   Property geology is similar to Rawhide Mine, with structures from the Walker Lane and Basin and Range faulting, along with lithologic units and structures of the Rawhide volcanic center. 

 

The geology of the Property includes the volcanic lithologies of andesite and latite juxtaposed along a north-northeast trending fault with opalite situated along the contact.  Several mapped faults trend north to northeast, and faults inferred from a historic ground magnetics geophysical traverse trend northwest. 

 

Jeremy Wire, a hydrogeologist and the prior claimant, concluded that two hydrothermal environments exist on the Property: the first being a high-level opalite plus acid-leached zone, and the second being a deeper zone of alteration.  Wire felt that the alteration environment fit a low sulfidation model whereby the opalite was deposited at a paleo water table and acid-leaching of the rocks occurred.  Emergent's preliminary interpretation is that this might be the top of a geothermal system.

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​Gold was originally discovered on the Buckskin Rawhide claims in the year 1906.  A gold rush in the area led to a number of mining claims being staked, ultimately forming the Regent Mining District (now known as the Rawhide Mining District).  The gold rush led to the formation of the town of Rawhide, which grew to a population of 7,000 by 1908 but dropped to 500 by the year 1910.  By the 1940’s, the town was essentially abandoned. 

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The Rawhide District was active with mining from 1908 to 1920, during which time 46,218 fine ounces of gold and 685,901 fine ounces of silver were produced from the historic mines.  During this period, historic mining activity occurred on the Property and a number of shafts, adits, and stopes were excavated.  No production records appear to exist from these operations.  From 1921 through 1935, only 2,815 fine ounces of gold and 51,463 fine ounces of silver were produced from the Rawhide Mining District (Vanderburg, 1937).

 

Modern exploration in the Rawhide area appears to have begun in the 1980’s, most of which was done by Kennecott Exploration Company. At that time, Kennecott was exploring the entire Rawhide District, eventually discovering and developing the Rawhide Mine, which Kennecott Minerals Company and others have operated from 1988 to the present.  

 

Historic exploration of the Property included geologic mapping, reconnaissance rock chip sampling, a ground magnetics survey, and a mercury soil gas geochemistry survey.  Shallow historic prospects are also present, but information on these workings is unknown.

 

Reconnaissance geologic mapping, along with a ground magnetics survey run in 1989, determined the locations of structures that crossed the claim block.  Historic surface rock geochemistry samples were taken in the years 1990 and 1992.  The sample locations were associated with north to northeast-trending faults on the southwest quarter of the property.  Several samples, taken in opalite breccias, assayed less than 50 ppb gold, but those rocks had elevated mercury and arsenic concentrations, all of which might be suggestive of a boiling zone in a geothermal system.  In 2001 a soil sampling program was conducted by MEG, Inc. using low-temperature mercury desorption.  This study indicated that high mercury concentrations might be related to structures and subsurface mineralization on the Property.

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The historic rock samples were assayed by Hunter Mining Laboratory, Inc. in August 1990 and Legend, Inc. in September 1992.  Both of these were reputable and reliable assay laboratories at that time. Historic samples were taken prior to the implementation of NI 43-101 and CIM Standards for Disclosure, therefore quality assurance and quality control measures are unknown.  They have not been verified by Emergent's geologist. However, the historic sample results did compare adequately with modern sampling done by Emergent in opalite rocks on the Property.  

 

Emergent's exploration on the Property has been limited to reconnaissance geological mapping and rock chip sampling.  The Property is strategically located west of the Toiyabe Exploration Target on RMC's Rawhide Mine Property and Emergent's Buckskin Rawhide Property to the east and has potential for discovery.  ​​​​

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