| Since
its founding in 1985, Avalon Development has evolved along with the mineral industry
and its clients. Prior to Alaska's explosive growth in the early to mid-1990's,
our Alaska exploration work was augmented by gold and copper exploration in Latin
America and Africa. As exploration in Alaska increased, Avalon exploration teams
participated in a number of discoveries in the state. In the Fairbanks District,
Avalon was responsible for discovery of the intrusive-hosted Dolphin gold
deposit in 1995, the southwestern extension of the 1.3 million ounce True North
deposit in 1996, deep high grade gold resources at the historic Cleary Hill
mine in 2000. Avalon's exploration teams were also an integral part of the
1 Moz Shotgun gold deposit discovery in southwestern Alaska, conducted
discovery drilling of the first lode gold resources in the Valdez Creek
District and completed the largest multi-client exploration program ever conducted
in the Goodpaster district. The Goodpaster District effort resulted
in advancement of two prospects to the drilling stage and identified other multi-element
gold and pathfinder anomalies that are still being explored. Prior to their discovery,
none of the mineralization discovered was known to exist at these prospects. During
the world-wide slump in metals prices and mineral industry activity extending
from 1997 through 2003, Avalon Development turned its attention to compilation
and interpretation of internally generated geographic information systems (GIS)
databases. This effort lead to a string of Alaskan discoveries of the "green metals",
platinum and palladium. Avalon compiled data from over 200 platinum group element
(PGE) occurrences across the state, identified promising targets and then follow-up
with field work that discovered multi-gram PGE mineralization at the Tonsina
and Union Bay prospects in southcentral and southeastern Alaska, respectively
(see our PGE page). In 2001,
Avalon was responsible for discovery of copper - nickel - PGE mineralization on
the Duke Island project, also in southeastern Alaska. Avalon continues
to work with a number of major and junior mining companies involved in PGE exploration
in Alaska. Now that the mineral industry is again booming, Avalon Development's
20 years of experience is paying dividends to its clients at precious, base and
platinum group metal exploration programs extending from southeast Alaska to the
Brooks Range, from eastern Interior Alaska to southwestern Alaska. |
