THE BIGHORN MINE

This mine is located near Atlin in north-western British Columbia. As with the Banks and the Deadwood this is a "hard rock" mine with a history of production and a significant potential for development.

In actual fact the Bighorn Mine only covers one small area of the claims controlled by Micrex. These claims were staked to cover what appear to be extensions of the gold, silver, copper, zinc mineralization that prompted the opening of the mine.

Four new vein structures have been located with geological information indicating the potential for many more.

Assays from existing tunnels run as high as 1.068 oz. gold per ton.

A block of probable ore that has been delineated between the developed levels of the mine is calculated at 76,000 tons grading an average of 0.17 oz. gold per ton.

Further sampling was carried out through 2002 to determine if gold mineralization could be found outside the vein system.

Previous exploration had given indications that there was a much larger area of mineralization that had been ignored by the early miners in their rush to mine the obvious quartz veins.

While the veins are certainly high grade, other structures and rock types within the expanded claim area showed definite mineral potential in samples taken previously.

The exciting assay results (gold assays as high as 121.16 grams (3.9 oz.) per tonne, silver assays as high as 56.9 grams (1.83 oz) per tonne) reported in the news release of June 26, 2002 encouraged Micrex to stake a large area covering the remainder of the potential mineralized zone.

Micrex believes there is a high probability that the high-grade vein system, found at the existing mine site, represents only a small part of the mineral potential in the area.

Micrex wanted to evaluate other structures and rock types with the idea that they might offer the potential for a bulk tonnage deposit and the recent sampling program has confirmed this approach as assays from this new area gave values as high as 18.25 grams (0.586 oz) of gold per tonne.

Silver assayed as high as 8.8 grams (0.283 oz) per tonne.

Obviously the gold and silver enrichment is not restricted to the high-grade vein system found in the area of the mine site, and the mineralized area now covered by the Micrex claim block offers a much expanded and exciting exploration target.

An airborne geophysics program covering the region surrounding the known mineral occurrences led to extensive additional staking by Micrex. Follow-up sampling of some of the geophysical anomalies indicates extensive mineralization and sampling and drilling programs are justified.

Plan of Operation

Follow-up sampling is planned to evaluate more of the mineralized zone within the Micrex claims. Additional airborne geophysics is being contemplated as well a highly targeted drilling program on selected targets.

Pictures of Spring 2002 Activity

Click on the pictures below for large images

	This log building is one of the few structures still standing after the underground mine was abandoned in the early 1900's. Geologists now use a helicopter to enable quick access to the adjacent areas being explored.
	The areas surrounding this valley have been extensively staked by Micrex, where our claims cover several square miles. The area was studied by British Columbia provincial geologists in the 1950's, who determined that it contained a substantial ore reserve. Micrex has located several areas where samples have returned high-grade assays.
	Some of the areas of interest are above the tree line. Pounding a stake into frozen and/or rocky ground can be a real challenge, and in one spot Micrex has had a problem with a grizzly bear that tears down the stake every year. Other jurisdictions (such as Alberta) no longer require physical staking - all claim boundaries are simply registered and stored in a database.

Recent Developments

Assay results from the sampling program undertaken in 2007 are contained in the following documents:
Samples 1 (Excel Spreadsheet)
Samples 2 (Excel Spreadsheet)
Element Analysis (Excel Spreadsheet)
Gold Assays (Excel Spreadsheet)
Gold Grain Count (PDF Document)
Knelson Concentrates (PDF Document)

This page was updated on September 11, 2008.