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PANTHER CANYON - NEVADA
The Panther Canyon Property is located in Nevada approximately 50 Km south of the community of Winnemucca, Nevada, in the Grass Valley, Pershing County. It consists of 4,515 hectares (11,157 acres) of federal public lands that were acquired by Magma at a U.S. Bureau of Land Management ("BLM") lease auction in August 2008. There is a low voltage power line that lies approximately 6 Km west of the Panther Canyon Property and a 345 kV line that runs east to west located approximately 8 km NNW of the property. Exploration was conducted at Panther Canyon in the 1970's and 1980's by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as part of its ongoing assessment of geothermal sites in the western United States. Aminoil USA, Inc. ("Aminoil"), and Sun Oil Company continued temperature gradient hole drilling and also performed geophysical, geochemical, and geological surveys in the area. Aminoil established a geothermal development unit in 1978 consisting of 12,250 hectares (30,270 acres) that they let expire during the weak energy market period in the middle 1980's. Out of a total of more than eighty shallow and intermediate depth temperature gradient and heat flow holes drilled in the southern Grass Valley, 58 were drilled in the vicinity of Panther Canyon. These holes ranged in depth from 25 metres to as deep as 457 metres, and gauged bottom hole temperatures from 17.2°C to 94.1°C. Likewise, temperature gradients ranged from a low of 31.2°C per kilometre to a high of 290°C per kilometre. Although no geochemical data on fluids is available for the Panther Canyon Property, data from nearby Leach Hot Springs provides some insight into possible maximum reservoir temperatures that could be anticipated. The maximum reservoir temperature beneath Leach Hot Springs itself has been estimated to be between 139°C and 182°C using silica and Na-K-Ca geothermometer calculations, respectively. Aminoil determined that using mixing model equations, the subsurface temperature may exceed 200°C, and if one considers a 75% cold groundwater dilution factor for silica, that anticipated temperature could reach 250°C. Geophysical data acquired by various parties included gravity, ground magnetics, magnetotelluric, standard resistivity, bipole-dipole, dipole-dipole resistivity, P-wave delay, microearthquake behavior, seismic ground noise, and active seismic refraction and reflection. Magma is evaluating all existing data and available databases and have completed in-fill gravity and magnetics field surveys. The likely resource delineation program will include acquisition of 3D reflection seismic data over the prospect in order to define the fault and fracture system followed by in-fill electrical field surveys. This data will be modeled using 3D analysis and visualization techniques to select locations for drilling two to four intermediate depth (1,000 to 2,000 metre) slim holes from which flow tests will be conducted. |
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