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Mesa de Oro Deposit
Location
The Mesa de Oro deposit is located approximately 45 miles southwest from the center of Albuquerque, NM and 13 miles south of State Highway 6 (west of Las Lunas) on County Road 54. The leases of lands are in Cibola County, New Mexico. The deposit is located approximately 15 miles from a railroad siding. The deposit is bounded by the Laguna Pueblo Indian Reservation on the North, the Acoma Indian Reservation on the West and the Alamo Indian Reservation is about fifteen miles to the South.
Ownership
CA Properties holds approximately 5,180 acres under various leases. The land is owned or controlled by NZ Travertine of Pheonix, AZ through fee simple mineral rights from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. In 1993, CAP entered into a lease agreement with NZ Travertine. The lease agreement has an annual rent per acre of $3.00, an annual royalty payment based on either a minimum rate or a production royalty charge, whichever is greater, and the payment of any BLM fees and property taxes.
Geologic Setting
The Mesa de Oro travertine is a relatively young Quaternary age, relatively high purity calcium carbonate rock deposited by extensive springs on an irregular erosion surface of the underlying Triassic Chinle Formation. The deposit is approximately 6.0 miles long by 1.5 miles wide, with thickness ranging up to 215 feet. The travertine is finely to massively bedded, with increasing interbeds of red clay and silt to the south. It is characterized by a variety of colors from white to yellow to tan, with variable layering and porosity.
Various drilling programs by various companies starting in 1978 have produced about 2, 190 feet of drilling information. Sampling and analytical work have determined that this is a relatively high calcium carbonate content with CaO content fo 53 to 55% and CaCO3 from 94 to 99%.
Resource Tonnage Estimation
An estimate was done in 1982 for Sunbelt Mining and subsequently updated in 2004 by Pincock, Allen & Holt (PAH) and in July 2006 verified to CAMI by an independent qualified geologist. When taking into account adjustments for the impact of ACEC designation in some sections that could severely restrict or prohibit mining on these lands, the adjusted resource estimates that CAMI are reporting is an estimated mineral resource of 477.6 million tons of high quality calcium carbonate as travertine.
Scoping Study
In May 2006, CAMI had a study commissioned to see what the current viability of the property would be. It was concluded that the use of the resource for a cement plant is the most probable use. The use of the property for aggregate, lime and dimension stone use are not profitable on a large scale because of the property's location relative to current suppliers. It should be noted that CAMI does sell about 2,500 tons a year of aggregate as decorative stone to home developers.
In July 2006, a study was commissioned on the opportunities for cement production. It concluded that the Mesa de Oro deposit appears to be a suitable source of raw material for cement production and that the development of the deposit for cement manufacture appears to be economic.
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Minerals
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