Great Basin Gold Ltd. (fka GBGLF)

Great Basin Gold Limited is an international mining company with two emerging mines in the world's richest gold regions: the Hollister Mine on the Carlin Trend in Nevada and the Burnstone Mine in the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa. These assets, combined with exploration activities in Tanzania and Mozambique, make Great Basin Gold an exceptionally well positioned investment opportunity.

Burnstone Mine is the first greenfield operation to come online in the Witwatersrand Basin in 30 years, commencing production at a time of record high gold prices and increasing demand. The Hollister Property presents one of the highest-grade deposits entering production today, with prolific potential to increase resources through further exploration of the surrounding area. Lead by a multidisciplinary team of respected industry veterans, Great Basin Gold is poised to transition into a significant commercial producer with excellent growth possibilities.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
400 Burrard Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V6C 3A6

Transfer Agent

Computershare Trust Company of Canada
4th Floor, 510 Burrard Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada V6C 3B9

Attorneys

McMillan LLP
Royal Centre, 1055 West Georgia St
Suite 1500, PO Box 11117
Vancouver, BC V6E 4N7
Canada

Auditors

PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc
2 Eglin Road,Sunninghill 2157
Private Bag x36
Sunninghill 2157
South Africa

Great Basin Gold Limited, incorporated in Canada - Reg no: 436691

Registered & Operational Offices:
138 West Street, Sandton 2146, South Africa

1108-1030 West Georgia Street
Vancouver BC, Canada, V6E 2Y3

 

Governance

The Witwatersrand Basin deposits, such as that found on the Burnstone Property, generally represent gold concentrations, called placer deposits (or "reefs", in local mining terminology), hosted within coarse-grained sediments (conglomerates) deposited in braided stream channels on broad river plains. Economic gold concentrations commonly extend for several km down the dip, and for up to 50 km (30 mi) along strike of the sedimentary rock units. Gold occurs as detrital grains in nugget-like shapes and secondary (re-crystallized) grains, ranging in size between 0.005 and 0.5 mm diameter.

The Witwatersrand Basin has been affected by several structural events. Many studies now differentiate between deformation that was taking place during deposition of the Witwatersrand sediments and subsequent deformation. Deformation that occurred during the deposition of the sediments played a key role in the distribution and thickness of the host rocks as well as the occurrence of the gold-bearing reefs. Later faulting and buckling of the sequence determined which parts of the basin remained buried, and the depths to mineable horizons.

The South Rand area is located in the north eastern part of the Witwatersrand Basin. In the South Rand, the Witwatersrand sequence is thinner than in other parts of the Basin. The West Rand Group, comprising about 1,500 m (4,920 ft) of alternating quartz arenite and shale units, unconformably overlies the Archaean granite-greenstone basement rocks. The overlying Central Rand Group strata are approximately 900 m (2,950 ft) thick and include the Kimberley Reef horizon, which is the main gold-bearing unit on the Burnstone Property. The Johannesburg Subgroup, including the Bird amygdaloidal lava and the Kimberley shale, is about 300 m (985 ft) thick. The Turffontein Subgroup is approximately 600 m (1,970 ft) thick and is made up of a sequence of quartz arenites and conglomerates that correlate with the Elsburg Formation.

An 18-km (11-mi) long northwest-southeast gold trend has been outlined on the Burnstone Property that appears to be associated with a large, ancient, braided channel system extending over the property. Drilling has also shown that two northwest-southeast trending sub-parallel faults, spaced four km apart, have uplifted the central portion of the gold corridor. As a result, a substantial portion of the gold-bearing horizon along the main deposit trend lies between 250 and 750 m (820-2,640 ft) in depth, which is relatively shallow for Witwatersrand gold deposits. The average thickness of the reef is 35 cm.

Epithermal gold mineralization at the Hollister Property occurred in the early Miocene (15.1 Myr) and is directly related to right - lateral wrench tectonics associated with the Northern Nevada Rift, where it over-prints the Carlin Trend. The Hollister Property hosts a low-sulfidation Au-Ag epithermal system characterized by banded quartz veins with electrum, native gold and silver selenides. To date over 40 mineralized veins have been modeled in the main Clementine-Gwenivere vein systems. The veins are narrow (1-3 feet wide), and commonly display colliform banding, brecciation and silicification features indicative of multiple pulses of fluid movement. The low-sulphur epithermal vein systems form as part of a geothermal system around the interface of hot volcanic derived hydrothermal fluids and cold meteoric water influx.  Similar active systems such as Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming) and the Taupo Volcanic Zone (New Zealand) demonstrate many of the features observed at Hollister.

Although mineral resources and reserves are delineated on the epithermal vein system hosted in Ordovician metasedimentary host rocks, continued exploration of the orebody has delineated  zones of disseminated gold mineralization in the overlying Tertiary volcanic, within which restricted structures host zones up to 100 oz per ton Au. These super high grade Blanket Zones are being accessed and developed as a separate ore source, and have to date have been tested metallurgically at a separate whole ore roasting facility.

Some of the primary geological elements of the sediment-hosted gold deposits of the Carlin Trend are present at the Hollister Property, including Eocene intrusive rocks and lower-plate carbonate rocks. The Hatter stock (a grandioritic intrusive) at the Hollister Property has been dated at 39 Ma and is similar to 39 Ma biotite-feldspar porphyry dikes occurring in the Goldstrike area 5 miles SE in the Carlin trend. The main pulse of gold mineralization on the Carlin Trend is dated at about 38 Ma and commonly thought to be associated with late-Eocene magmatism.